Tip for Passover recipes/ chocolate hazelnut merengues, chocolate macaroons

[Guest guest]

My brilliant mom came up with this method for converting our favorite Passover

recipes: To substitute for matzoh meal and cake meal, grind up rice cakes in a

food processor to the same consistency. The recipes still take some tinkering,

including adding xanthan gum in some cases, but the rice cakes provide a similar

texture to matzoh products because they are both baked and crispy before being

ground.`Of course, this doesn't work for those who don't eat rice during

Passover.

Great Passover recipe: Chocolate-hazelnut meringues from the Atlantic Monthly

(April 1996), which we've used for years and everyone loves it:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96apr/food/nuts.htm

Scroll down to near the end of the article. It's from The Joy of Coffee by Corby

Kummer.

And here's our absolute favorite, super-easy, chocolate dipped macaroon recipe,

which is a hit with everyone who likes macaroons, GF or not:

Macaroon Cookies Dipped in Chocolate

3 ½ cups unsweetened coconut

¼ cup gluten-free flour (rice flour, tapioca flour, or blend, etc.)

1 ¼ cups sugar

2 eggs

1 egg white

4 oz. bittersweet chocolate

¼ cup water

Preheat over to 325 degrees. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment. Mix the

coconut, flour, and one cup of the sugar. Add eggs and egg white and MIX LIGHTLY

WITH FINGERS until well blended (otherwise cookies can end up heavy). Form the

cookies by shaping two tablespoons of dough into a ball, and gently flatten it

slightly onto the cookie sheet. Place them about 2 inches apart (they don’t

spread). Bake 25 minutes until slightly golden. Allow them to cool on a rack.

Melt the chocolate, water and ¼ cup of the sugar in a double boiler and stir.

Dip half of each cookie in for “black and white†macaroons.