- Danielle Kristen is so much
more fun than Kristen Danielle.
- Well sometimes things don't
work for Danielle Kristen,
(both laughing)
And I have a feeling everything
works for Kristen Danielle.
- Not always.
(whispers) I don't really
know what I'm gonna say.
We'll see what happens. (chuckles)
Imagine the very best coconut
macaroon you've ever tasted,
but then make it kinda caramely
and crispy on the edges
and a little salty and a
little custardy in the middle.
That is what this week's Genius Recipe is.
It is no wonder it's one of
the greatest hits of all time.
(mellow groovy music)
- Introduce me.
- You guys,
we have a special treat today.
- A huge treat.
- Daniel from Rustic
Joyful Food is here again.
- Yes, thank you.
- But this time she's
here to show us her recipe
that has been deemed genius long ago,
- Yes.
- and was in Genius Desserts.
And everybody loves it,
but now I finally have
you here to show us.
- Yes.
- And show us how to make it,
and tell us all the stories.
- Yeah.
It's gonna be so much fun.
And I actually wrote you, six years ago,
when I was just finding out about food 52
and falling madly in love with it,
and I was like, "Oh my gosh,
there's her email address,"
and when I wrote you,
you responded.
- Yes.
- And I thought it was like the best thing
that ever happened to me.
- Yeah.
- And I told you, "We have
this really cool recipe,"
and then we actually found
it today when I got here,
which is so cool.
- Yes.
September 5th, 2014:
Hello Kristen,
I've got a simple,
mind-blowing recipe for you.
It's from my just-released book,
"Rustic Joyful Food, My Heart's Table".
A few years ago, I started
researching macaroons,
how to make them, and
how to make them special.
Where was the egg yolk?
Where was the butter?
- Yeah.
- "Where was the fun?"
- Yes.
- "These chewy custard
beauties were born."
- Yes!
- "I put the recipe up on my blog today,
(chuckles) "rusticjoyfulfood.com
under blog."
- I didn't even tell you,
I didn't even put the link.
(Danielle laughing)
- So I was gonna just go,
like click back on the link
to see it on your blog.
I cannot.
- And you couldn't, no.
Go find it, please.
Hello Kristen, go find my recipe please.
- You also included a
photo and the recipe,
and they look...
- I made that little photo.
- So I did write back that day,
- Yeah.
- and amazingly,
I had it together.
- This is six years ago.
Wait wait, and when you wrote back,
I was over-the-moon excited.
I was like. (gasps)
I felt like it was my big break.
I'm like, "Kristen from
Food 52 wrote me back,
"and she said she might try it."
(both laughing)
Did you try it right away,
or you didn't try it for,
I feel like it was another year or two.
And this is really funny, when
we were going back and forth,
you were like, "Okay, so it says
"eight ounces of condensed milk?"
And I was like, "Yeah, totally,
"use the whole can, whatever."
(Kristen chuckling)
I was like, writing my recipe down,
like, "How much is one;
it's about a cup, right?
"In a can, it's about a cup, right?
"Yeah, it's totally a cup.
(Kristen chuckling)
"It's a cup of condensed milk."
(Kristen laughing)
It's a 14 ounce can!
- Feels like...
- Feels like a cup.
(Kristen laughing)
It's a cup, so that's actually
what I put in my book,
my self-published book,
one cup of, eight ounces,
'cause I was being fancy.
I put the ounces in there,
(Kristen chuckling)
eight ounces of sweetened, condensed milk.
So when we were going back and forth,
talking about the recipe,
the recipe, in my mind, was right,
but you were using what was written,
and so I was like,
"There's more milk in it."
So the, when I started
researching, and I was like,
"This is so weird.
"I wonder why hers aren't
turning out the same way as mine?
"They should have this chewy
ribbon around the outer edge."
Then I realized what had happened.
- Both versions were amazing.
- Delicious, amazing.
- But the problem was,
I had made the one version.
- Yep.
- And then I couldn't
get it out of my head.
- [Danielle] And you fell
in love with that version.
- Yeah.
- In the recipe,
we start with sweetened, shredded coconut,
sweetened condensed coconut.
(Kristen laughs)
And I've had a lot of people
use unsweetened coconut.
You're not gonna get the same texture.
It's not gonna be as custardy,
but it is still equally delicious.
Here, I'll have you
hold the beautiful bowl,
and you can just, we have 17
and a half ounces of coconut.
They since, in at least
the Pacific Northwest,
do not make that size bag anymore,
so we just measure it out.
It's roughly six and a half cups.
And you see how great I measure? (giggles)
- Well as we've seen
the recipe did, (laughs)
- Look at, it works, three. (laughs)
- I always have to look
the other way. (laughs)
(Danielle laughs)
(metallic clink)
- No you guys, this is
how a home cook works.
I mean, some of 'em probably
don't work this way. (laughs)
But I mean, honestly, look at.
If it's moundy right here,
and you have a big gap right
here, you're totally fine.
Look, four!
(Kristen laughs)
And we're goin' in for five.
- This is the Danielle Kristen way.
- This is the Danielle Kristen way.
(gasps) You guys, we share names.
I am Danielle Kristen.
- And I'm Kristen Danielle,
and I'm the one who is like, beep boop,
get the scale tared out, make sure--
- And I'm like this.
(Kristen laughing)
Don't move,
five, six.
(metallic patting)
And then I'll be like, oh, "Oh, yeah,
"we actually need an extra half a cup."
- Oh yes.
- And boom.
Okay see, we totally got it.
- Danielle Kristen is so much
more fun than Kristen Danielle.
- Well sometimes things don't
work for Danielle Kristen.
(both laughing)
And I have a feeling everything
works for Kristen Danielle.
- Not always.
- So here comes the fun
part, the genius part,
the whole egg,
because I know people are like,
"Oh my gosh, you're can
make a egg white whatever."
Or, "Save the yolk for pudding."
One yolk?
(Kristen laughing)
And then you try to like eat it
or sit it in a bowl of salt to cure it.
I mean, I don't know.
(egg cracking)
I'm not into it.
I'm just, I'm more of a not wastey person,
so use your hands, and
crack the whole darn egg.
- Well this is the
really fun part, though.
When we gonna do it?
- This, oh you should do it,
and then I'll help scrape it out.
- Okay.
- Go for it.
(mellow groovy music)
It's just like already a party.
- You don't get to do this in
the Kristen Danielle version.
- You don't.
- You measure. (chuckles)
- See, I'm like, "Crack the
can open and use it up."
(Danielle chuckles)
And then we have
(quiet squeaking)
(laughs) a weakling. (laughs)
I panicked a little bit.
(Kristen laughs)
We want a teaspoon of vanilla.
(metallic spoons tinkling)
- Yes.
- Oh these are cute.
These are vintagey.
Oh my gosh, these were
somebody's grandma's.
Might not have been our grandma's,
but it was somebody's grandma.
(Kristen chuckling)
So we're gonna do a teaspoon.
- And, mm-hm.
- Flaky sea salt,
so this is really important.
If you have a really beautiful salt,
like Maldon or Jacobsen,
or something fun that you really love,
and we want about three
quarters of a teaspoon.
And I was just gonna guess.
- Go for it.
(metallic tinkling)
- Let me get the three quarters.
So I'm gonna do the Kristen Danielle way,
and we're gonna go a half,
(whispering) measure, measure,
(Kristen laughing)
and we even have another one.
You guys, this is why I'm doing this.
It feels so wrong to measure this,
(both laughing)
because the other me.
See, and I want a little
bit more for good measure.
That's more than a quarter teaspoon.
Oh, and our butter.
Our butter, this is a
super important part.
- Our stick of butter.
- Pour it in, girl.
- Okay.
- (whispers) Butter.
♪ Butter ♪
A whole stick of butter.
- A whole stick of butter.
- You're a genius.
- (whispers) Oh, thank you.
(pan gently clacks)
And then I broke up the
yolk just a little bit,
and here we're just
gonna do our stir method
of swirling your spoon around the bowl.
(Kristen laughs)
- And you really can't
over mix this, right?
- You can't over mix it.
There's no gluten in here.
There's nothing crazy.
The coconuts not gonna do anything weird.
And you know what else is really fun?
To use this base as a base for brownies.
- Whoa.
- Incredible.
So it just goes on the bottom,
and then your brownie mix goes on the top,
and you're baking it for, like,
your 18 minutes or 20 minutes,
however long you're baking
your brownie recipe.
Life changing.
(mellow groovy music)
- And we haven't actually
talked, I don't think,
about the fact that you had a restaurant,
which is where these got started,
right?
- Oh, yes, yes.
So, it's so funny.
When my husband and I got married,
we decided to open our restaurant,
and a lot of our friends were like,
"Are you trying to not have
your marriage be successful?"
And we got going, and I
was really good at it.
We had this tiny little,
kind of hole-in-the-wall.
We opened on a super shoestring budget,
and I just cooked food that I loved,
and that started everything.
It started all the recipe writing,
all the food career, everything.
Like it really turned into
this incredible passion,
so I'm so grateful.
Even though the restaurant closed,
we lost everything,
totally crashed and burned.
From that broken time,
like, you just get a whole new path,
which is so cool for people,
so I love to tell people our story.
Like hey, sometimes things don't work out,
and then you find yourself,
eight years later,
in Food 52, Genius Recipes kitchen,
and I could almost cry, saying that,
because life just turns out
in really beautiful ways.
So, I'm really happy that
that restaurant closed.
I'm gonna cry. (laughs)
(Kristen chuckling)
And we used to serve these.
People would line up, and they
would be around the block,
'cause we were kinda by the courthouse,
and they, like when we
were baking these cookies,
like, it filled the neighborhood.
You could just smell coconut and butter,
and people freaked out for these.
Here we are almost 10 years later,
and they're making like
waves on the internet.
That's really cool! (chuckles)
So now, we just gotta scoop.
- We just scoop.
We have two options.
- We have two options.
- What are you gonna pick?
(pan clanks)
- Well, in honor of Kristen Danielle,
I'm going to pick the scoop.
- Oh, I want you to do
this, 'cause I wanna
see how you do it.
- I do too.
I actually like these.
This is my favorite, you guys.
- Okay good.
- So I legitimately just,
I make sure that there's little
crags, and scoop 'em off.
Look at that.
- So cute.
- That's it.
You have the cute little
ice cream scoop edges,
which are amazing.
(scoop clicks)
(mellow grove music)
(scoop clicks)
- I like yours though.
These go in the oven, do you remember
how much and how long?
- 375 degrees
for, I wanna say, 12 to 14 minutes.
Yeah, I think so.
- That's right, yeah.
Nailed it. (chuckles)
- It's like I wrote it.
Okay, then we're gonna bake 'em.
Perfect.
- Yeah, let's go.
- Look at 'em, you guys.
- I know.
So these are a parchment paper cookie.
It's so important that
you use parchment paper.
And even if you're a Silpat person,
that's wonderful, and
Silpat's work incredibly,
but sometimes this cookie,
because it's becoming caramel,
it just turns into glue.
So if you put the batter
directly on your pan,
goodbye.
(Kristen laughs)
You're gonna have to soak it.
You know, pull the tops
off and soak the pan.
They will not come off.
And if you use a Silpat,
it's like a 75 25,
'cause I've had people send me pictures
where they stuck to their Silpat,
and then I've had people send me pictures
where they're like, "My
Silpat worked, it's victory!"
And I'm like, "I'm so happy for you."
But just don't risk it.
These are such a parchment paper cookie.
And these are so good on ice cream,
like, you can break them up,
and put 'em on an ice cream sundae.
You can put extra caramel over the top.
- Well yeah, look at these--
- look at these little bits.
- That little bit, if we,
oops that's hot. (laughs)
- Yeah.
(softly blowing)
- If we had a bunch of those little bits,
those would be amazing
sprinkled all over ice cream.
- Amazing on ice cream, yes, 100%.
- Or like on top of a cake,
for extra festive garnishes.
- These taste like victory.
- You're eating a macaroon already.
Is it so hot?
(Danielle laughs)
- I blew on it. (laughs)
(Kristen laughs)
I just picked a top little
crag off, like this,
and then blew on him.
You should do it too.
- Okay.
(mellow groovy music)
- See, it's so good.
I can't wait for people to make these.
(hands clapping)
- Me too.
(mellow groovy music)
For more Genius Recipes like this,
every week, what do the people do?
- Smash the like button.
(Kristen chuckles)
- And the subscribe button.
- And subscribe.
You know how you're watching YouTube,
and they're like, "Come on guys,
"smash the like button,
like and subscribe!"
At least my eight year old,
on the stuff that he watches.
(Kristen laughing)
(laughs) I'm like, "I would do it too."
I mean, you're all on
YouTube right now, you know.
(both laughing)
- I didn't know.
I'm just like, "Like,
"subscribe." (laughs)
- Subscribe, I know.
And they're like, "The bigger the better!
"We'll see you next week!"
(Kristen laughing)
And then you're like stuck
in the bowels of YouTube.
Anyways, we really
enjoyed having you today,
and we had such a good time.
We can't wait 'til next time.
We can't wait for you to try these,
so write a little comment below
of everything that you loved,
and all of your wonderful things to say.
- And all of the other random stuff
you bake them on.
- Yes!
I just learned this from Danielle.
Put 'em on brownies and under brownies,
on top of cakes.
- Yes.
Choose your adventure.
- You do all that,
like, subscribe,
Rustic Joyful Food, all the books.
- All the books.
- Rusticjoyfulfood on Instagram.
- Yes.
- Genius Desserts,
so much fun stuff for you to do,
(hands clapping)
so many ways to eat these macaroons.
- Yes, thank you guys.
(smooching)
(Kristen chuckles)
- Oh, (laughs)
(quickly smooches)
- From Danielle Kristen.
- And Kristen Danielle.
- Who are both married to Mikes.
That wasn't shorter.
(both laughing)
(mellow jazzy music)
