Far and away, the best thing I put in my mouth when I was in Disneyland a few weeks ago was the Matterhorn Macaroon from the Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe. I went into my vacation armed with a list from the Disney Food Blog of all the “must eats” that I still hadn’t tried, and this was on there. Boy, this didn’t disappoint.
It was a dense, moist, delicious macaroon covered in hardened white chocolate and sugar. It was so, so good. And enormous, which is always good when it comes to dessert, right?
Boy oh boy has this recipe been a labor of love. I have re-worked and re-tried so many different variations of macaroons over the last two years, but it was never quite right, and then BOOM, it hit me.
Remember when Maleficent realizes her goons have been searching for a baby for 16 years? It was that kind of moment. Instead of “Fools! Imbeciles! All this time, you’ve been looking for a baby!?” it was “Fool! All this time, you’ve been looking for a macaroon!”
Because the answer is this: This is not a typical macaroon of just egg white, sugar, coconut, salt, and vanilla. This recipe has flour. And butter. It’s like some kind of weird shortbread morphed with macaroon species.
And you know what? I think I finally figured it out. And here it is:
If you’re in a Disney kind of mood, check out my other Disney recipes for their famous White Chocolate Raspberry Cookie, their Mattherhorn Macaroons, Goofy’s Kitchen’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Pizza, and Minnie’s Bakeshop Baked French Toast. And of course, homemade Mickey Beignets
A Rumbly in my Tumbly original
Ingredients:
1 cup room temperature butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon coconut extract
1 cup sweetened, shredded coconut – see note below for how to prepare coconut
2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 bag of Wilton Bright White Candy melts
decorators sugar for sprinkling
Directions:
Preheat oven to 325°. Get out an ungreased baking sheet
Cream together your butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add salt, extracts, and flour and mix until just combined. Add one cup of coconut (processed in the food processor as described below) and fold in gently.
Form into 12 matterhorn mounds and bake until lightly golden around the edges (around 15 minutes.)
Remove from oven and cool completely. Melt candy melts as directed on package and dip the tops of your matterhorns in. Sprinkle with decorators sugar.
Enjoy!
*How to prepare your coconut: Place a couple of cups of shredded, sweetened coconut into a food processor or blender and pulse until it is very fine. Use one packed cup of the very fine mixture in this recipe.
Rumbly in my Tumbly 
hi I was just wondering how many egg whites I need for the recipe? And at what point should i fold them in? Thank you Megan
Hi Megan, no egg whites in these. After several attempts with egg whites, I just was not getting the consistency of the ones at Disneyland. I also couldn’t get them to stand up like matterhorns with egg whites. I must have attempted a dozen times at this recipe. I ended up deciding that the matterhorn macaroon was not a true “macaroon” at all, but instead a butter cookie with a lot of coconut on it. Try this recipe, it is VERY close, and let me know if you think I’m right.
Ok 🙂 thank you so much. I can’t wait to make these 🙂 thank you.
Can I skip the almond extract? Does it make that much of a difference
Thanks for going to such efforts to try to recreate this recipe. It is my absolute favorite of all Disney treats. When I was in Disneyland in September, I bought six on my last day to share with friends back home. Everyone must experience these heavenly mountainous treats!
As to your recipe, you are very close indeed! You’re right; the Matterhorn Macaroon isn’t a macaroon at all. It’s more of a coconut shortbread cookie. I did find this “copycat” recipe to be a bit heavy on the flour. By reducing the flour by 1/4 cup (1 3/4 cups total) and adding 1/4 teaspoon coconut extract (so there’s a total of 1 teaspoon of extracts), I found these to be a little easier to work with, as well as a bit sweeter. Might I suggest trying those slight changes?
Thanks again for sharing!
Derek, thanks for the comment and suggestions. I’m still perfecting this and definitely will try that.
Hi Shannon, i tried these biscuits last night,and they are my daughter LOVES them. So they are going to be a regular favorite. I made them into flat bumpy biscuits, and dipped half into white Chocolate.
We use to go to Disneyland Paris Twice a years. Summer and Christmas. Love it there.
All the way over the pond in the New Forest ENGLAND
When you finish mixing all the ingredients together what consistency should the mixture be? Mine was very very very dry and very hard to work with without my mountains crumbling down. Could you possibly take pictures as a step by step process so we know we’re doing the same thing lol
The mixture is hard to work with. Yes! Next time I make these, I will take pictures of the steps for sure. 🙂