Monday, February 27, 2012

Scottish Recipes - Scottish Macaroon Bars

Scottish Macaroon Bars

Scottish Macaroon Bar

Scottish Macaroon Bars




Not to be confused with American/French Macaroons, pictured below



Ahhhhh  Scottish Macaroon Bars..... these dreamy coconut delights are super sweet and full of sugar with a surprise ingredient



Potatoes
Potatoes


Yes, a sugary treat made of potato, who knew

So when you make these delicious sweet treats you can impress your friends and family with this little piece of Macaroon Bar trivia

In Scotland, a famous brand of Macaroon Bar is Lee's


Macaroon Bars were a big part of my childhood, if I wasn't munching on a Lee's Macaroon Bar, then my mum was making the real deal. Homemade Macaroon's were found in many bake sales. I remember being young and a company would come around door to door selling Macaroon Bars and Tablet, yum.

I think it is only in homes across Scotland that Macaroon Bars are made from real potato, due to shelf life big companies don't use real potato. You can easily store them in an air tight container for around 5 days or so

Before we start, I just want to say these are the messiest things I have ever made

Fun, yet messy

To make these, I am using my mum's recipe that she handed down to me

You will need


1 Small Potato (note: the potato in the pic is too big)
1lb Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar to my USA readers)
10oz Cooking Chocolate (semi-sweet chocolate to my USA readers)
6oz sweetened Coconut


potato
Icing sugar or powdered sugar
melted chocolate, toasted coconut


Peel, Chop and Boil Potato and then Mash very well (no lumps)


Potato, mashed very well


Add potato to icing sugar (powdered sugar) a little at a time and mix (it wont taste like potato, go on, try it)

It will resemble a stiff yet sticky dough


Put into tray and then into fridge, leave to set


Potato and sugar mixture in a tray to set


Cut into rectangles when set, here is where my mixture was still a bit too sticky, so I rolled my rectangles into oblong shapes, try not to handle the mixture too much, it gets sticky with warm hands


After making shapes, rectangle or rolls, put back in fridge while melting chocolate


Melt Chocolate over a bain marie (pot of boiling water with heat proof bowl on top)


bain marie


Lay Coconut on a baking tray, Toast the Coconut until golden in oven at 350F for a few minutes

Some of my coconut was still white, I liked that, I mixed it up and it looked great


toasted coconut


This is where it gets messy but fun


chocolate and coconut station


Dip the set shaped Macaroon mixture into the melted Chocolate


Next Roll the chocolate covered mixture in the Toasted Coconut


(my hands resembled macaroons by the end, eeek)


Leave on plate to set


Enjoy


Scottish macaroon bar

Scottish Macaroon Bars


Hope you all enjoy this tasty treat and I hope I have brought back great Macaroon Bar memories for my Scottish pals

Anyone who hasn't made these, go on give them a try and amaze your friends with the potato surprise



Angela 







4 comments:

  1. I'm from Dundee too and used to make this for my children - it never lasted long as they would tell all their friends who had to sample it too!

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  2. I 'tried' to make this once but I didn't believe that you only needed a very small potato! I also made the mistake of adding the icing sugar to the potato and I ran out of sugar! Thank you for reminding me of my childhood growing up in Musselburgh (outside Edinburgh) in Scotland. I'm going to try and make this again. Cilla

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