Coconut Macaroon

Few languages are more poetic or romantic than that of Italy, and the Italian word ammacare—which means to crush—is the root of the more familiar word “macaron” or “macaroon.”

Such is the beauty of language and of baking that what started in Venetian monasteries as a small almond-meringue cookie with a chewy center— sometimes called “priest’s bellybuttons”—was introduced to French royalty before morphing into different variations as the rßecipe traveled.

The substitut