Coconut Macaroons on Rice Paper

There was a baker's window in the town where I grew up that always had a tray of these in the front, lined up in their paper cases, gold-tipped and a little uneven. I'd stand on tiptoe to see them. I didn't know then that they were one of the easier things in the whole shop. Three ingredients and a sheet of rice paper. No skill required beyond the willingness to make a small mess.

They are a quietly splendid thing to have around. Crisp on top where the oven has caught the coconut, soft and chewy in the middle where the egg white holds it all together, and underneath a thin, papery disc that dissolves on your tongue. The rice paper isn't a gimmick. It's the whole point. Without it you have a biscuit that sticks to the tray and falls apart. With it you have a small, complete object that can travel in a tin to a friend's house, a school fete, a Tuesday afternoon when someone needs a bit of sugar.

I make a batch when there are spare egg whites in the fridge from something else. A custard, a pasta, a meringue I never got round to. They take fifteen minutes to put together and twenty in the oven. By the time the kettle has boiled twice, you have biscuits. We're only making dinner, and then pudding, and then something for the tin.

A recipe is a conversation, not a contract. If you want to dip the bases in dark chocolate once they're cool, do. If you want to press half a glace cherry into each one before baking, the way the baker in my town used to, do that. Your kitchen, your rules.