Macroon Tarts and tale of 'Cinnamon' restaurant

Its been a while I last posted. I am enjoying vacations in my home town Karachi, Pakistan. I had many plans to cover variety of foods available here, from street food to bakeries to seasoned mangoes to cafes to wedding food but so far none have been materialized. Life is crazy busy here and moreover its hot, humid and the usual electricity load shedding. Although my productivity is almost zero but my busy days owe to shopping and laziness. Many things happened in past two weeks, we travelled from Karachi to Islamabad for cousin's wedding. I will not go into details on how stale the food was, served at local airline Airblue or how greasy and spicy (but tasty) the wedding food was but a lunch in a local restaurant in Islamabad is worth mentioning. The place was called Cinnamon and my sister's friend took us there. The restaurant was in the basement and ambiance was calm and cool with a soothing waterfall sound. The dish i ordered was called One Bowl Vegetable Pie and in one word it was truly scrumptious. It was loaded with vegetables like carrots, baby corn, mushrooms, zuchini covered in italian tomato sauce as the first layer, buttery mashed potatoes as second layer and mozeralla cheese as final layer. It was grilled and decorated with olives. I highly recommend this place and particularly this dish if you happen to visit Islamabad anytime soon.

Coming back to recipe, I have selected Macroon tarts this week. Quick to make, easy to please the crowd. I usually make them for giveaways since they store really well. Its the perfect oh-so-easy recipe if you are trying pies and tarts for the first time.

Ingredients:

Crust:

Butter 8 tbsp

Super fine sugar 2 tbsp

Eggs yolk 1
Flour 2 cups

Milk 2-3 tbsp

Filling:

Egg whites 4

Grinded Sugar approx. 1 cup

Dessicated coconut 1-2 cups

Method:

Crust:

• Sift flour.
• Add butter, sugar and egg yolk.
• Rub in with finger tips lightly so the mixture resembles fine crumbs.
• Add in enough milk to form a smooth soft dough. Dont worry too much about getting it smooth. Don't knead, just combine to form a ball.
• Wrap in cling plastic and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
• Take out, roll it into a circle of 1/2 inch thickness.
• Cut out rounds with a cokie cutter or round cap according to your muffin tray circles.
• Place each circle in muffin tray.

Filling:

• Beat egg whites stiff. Make sure there is no grease or moisture in the bowl and on whiskers else egg whites will not be stiff.
• Add sugar and beat.
• Dont over beat else it will curdle.
• Add enough coconut to form a thick mixture like paste.
• Put 1-2 tbsp of this mixture in prepared muffin tray.
• Bake in a pre-heated oven at no.4 till golden brown for about 20-25 minutes.