Thalers were silver coins used throughout Europe for almost four hundred years. The name lives on in the dollar – for the time being anyway. I never know if my source would want me to identify the origin of a recipe when I tear it apart. It’s a Hungarian cooking site, so I will leave it at that. I made a batch yesterday and it was a disaster, the cookies were all over the place completely without uniformity. I was tempted to give it another name, but I thought no, this was a failure. We liked the taste, even Olivia ate it and to my knowledge, she didn’t even like coconut. So I mixed up half a batch today, ignoring some of the redundancies of the recipe and all the bad advice. Today’s cookies turned out almost perfect, I would have liked them more if they were a little larger. I had 42 cookies from half a batch so yes these are small. To get evenly shaped cookies, you must not press this cookie down, because it is not possible to maintain even pressure of fingers, which then results in all sorts of crazy shapes and some of which fuse together no matter how far you space them. So let physics happen, the cookies will spread out evenly, as long as you make a reasonable mound of batter on the baking sheet. In retrospect, I should have used a piping bag; it would have been much faster than with a spoon. I tried spraying the parchment paper with cooking spray, but I didn’t like the greasiness of the cookie bottoms. Then I discovered that if you let the cookies cool on the pan, they will not only solidify, they will separate from the paper with ease.
1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp butter, melted and cooled
4 egg whites
scant 1/2 cup sugar
3 Tbsp flour
1 cup fine unsweetened coconut
• Melt the butter and set it aside to cool down.
• Meanwhile line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Beat the egg whites until very soft peeks form.
• Gradually add the sugar, beating all the while.
• Spoon by spoon beat in the flour.
• Gradually pour in the cooled, melted butter, beating all the while.
• Gradually add the coconut and beat it until well combined.
• Set the oven to 375F.
• Using a pastry bag or a soupspoon, place a little mound of batter on the prepared baking sheet. If using a spoon, use your left finger to guide the batter, so it forms a nice round mound. Do NOT press it down. This takes time, especially if you use a spoon. By the time two baking sheets are filled, the oven should be ready.
• Place the cookie sheet in the preheated oven and bake from 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are starting to get a little color around the edge.
• Remove baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies cool down on the cookie sheet.
• Once cooled, the cookies will easily separate from the parchment paper.
4 egg whites
scant 1/2 cup sugar
3 Tbsp flour
1 cup fine unsweetened coconut
• Melt the butter and set it aside to cool down.
• Meanwhile line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Beat the egg whites until very soft peeks form.
• Gradually add the sugar, beating all the while.
• Spoon by spoon beat in the flour.
• Gradually pour in the cooled, melted butter, beating all the while.
• Gradually add the coconut and beat it until well combined.
• Set the oven to 375F.
• Using a pastry bag or a soupspoon, place a little mound of batter on the prepared baking sheet. If using a spoon, use your left finger to guide the batter, so it forms a nice round mound. Do NOT press it down. This takes time, especially if you use a spoon. By the time two baking sheets are filled, the oven should be ready.
• Place the cookie sheet in the preheated oven and bake from 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are starting to get a little color around the edge.
• Remove baking sheet from the oven and let the cookies cool down on the cookie sheet.
• Once cooled, the cookies will easily separate from the parchment paper.
