By Keighley’s Mike Armstrong, an award-winning master baker with a big passion for baking...

THERE are some recipes that seem to bring a sense of nostalgia.

A treat that was always made in granny's kitchen, or a family favourite recipe torn out of a magazine long faded but always remembered, food really does have the power to take you back to a time gone by.

Coconut macaroons are one of those and are so simple to make with children, which is probably why so many of us have fond memories of making them as a child, using an egg cup as a mould.

Ask anyone who grew up in the 1950s and 60s who the best cook was, and they will almost certainly say mum!

A lack of British culinary skill could be blamed on rationing, which continued even after the end of the Second World War. Indeed, when the Queen came to the throne in 1952, sugar, butter, margarine, cheese, meat and tea were all still rationed. The 1950s were the age of spam fritters, salmon sandwiches, tinned fruit and evaporated milk and the only way to add flavour to this bland cooking was with tomato ketchup or brown sauce. Olive oil was sold in small bottles from the chemist, to be warmed up to loosen ear wax!

Meat and two veg was the staple diet for most families, who rarely if ever ate out. The closest most people came to eating out was in the pub. There you could get pickled eggs, potato crisps – in only three flavours – or cockles and mussels from the seafood man who called every Friday and Saturday evening.

By the late 1960s a rise in immigration had brought with it new flavours, although the Chinese restaurant had become popular in the 1950s, and even Billy Butlin introduced chop suey and chips into his holiday camps.

Dinner parties had become very popular by the 1970s, with dishes like spaghetti bolognese accompanied by wines of choice. Pre-dinner drinks were accompanied by cubes of tinned pineapple and cheddar cheese on sticks stuck into a melon or grapefruit, followed by a mixed grill or steak, with black forest gateau as a dessert.

The decades between the 1950s and 70s marked a dramatic turning point in British eating habits.

Food transports us back to happier times in our lives, and coconut macaroons were certainly part of that.

RECIPE

COCONUT MACAROONS

Makes 12

Ingredients:

400g/14oz desiccated coconut

397g can of condensed milk

150g/5oz dark chocolate

12 half cherries

Method:

1. In a large mixing bowl, add the coconut and condensed milk and combine well with a wooden spoon so you have a relatively dry but moist mixture.

2. Line a baking tray with baking paper, and dip an egg cup or ice cream scoop in a bowl of cold water so it’s squeaky clean each time you fill it.

3. Scoop and compact well before patting out onto the baking tray, allowing a little room to bake. If the mixture is too sticky, firm up in the fridge.

4. Top each pyramid with half a cherry before baking in a preheated oven at 160C/140C fan/Gas Mark 3.

5. Bake for 15 minutes until the tops and edges start to brown, then transfer onto a cooling wire.

6. Once cool, melt chocolate in the microwave and dip each base in the chocolate and return to the baking tray to set fully.