Michelle Darmody: Baking with Coconut, an incredibly versatile ingredient
Coconut is a versatile ingredient, it comes in many guises, in the form of water, milk, oil or cream, desiccated or flaked.
- 100g desiccated coconut
- 2 eggs whites, lightly whisked
- 10g of flour, sieved
- 90g of caster sugar
- 1 tsp of vanilla essence
- 70g of dark chocolate, broken into small pieces
- 10g of soft butter
- the zest of 2 limes
Line a baking tray with parchment and preheat the oven to 160 degrees.
Mix the coconut, the egg whites, flour, caster sugar and vanilla together until well combined.
Scoop the mixture into a piping bag with a large star shaped nozzle. Pipe 12 swirled pyramids onto the baking tray.
Place into the oven and bake for 15 minutes or until golden at the edges. Place on a wire rack to cool. Keep the tray with the bakingparchment on it and set it aside.
Melt the chocolate over a saucepan of boiling watertaking care not to let any steam into the chocolate. Once the chocolate has melted stir in the butter and lime zest. Dip the base of each macaroon into the chocolate mix and place onto the cold baking tray and parchment. Allow the chocolate to set and then peel the parchment off the base of each macaroon.
Coconut Jam Cake
- 260g of golden caster sugar
- 270g of soft butter
- 5 eggs
- 3 tbs of coconut milk
- 350g of self-raising flour,sieved
- 45g of desiccated coconut
- 100g of good quality raspberry jam and a tablespoon extra
- 450g of coconut cream,chilled, just the solids any liquid discarded
- 1.5 tbs of icing sugar
- 15g of coconut flakes
Heat the oven to 150C and line an 8in spring form tin with baking parchment.
Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Mix the eggs with the coconut milk.
Add the egg mixture slowly and if it separates add some flour.
Once the eggs are combined stir in the flour and coconut with a spatula and make sure they become completely mixed into the other ingredients.
Scoop the mixture into the tin and bake for an hour and a half or until a skewer comes out clean.
Set aside to cool for 10 minutes then remove from the tin and place on a wire rack to cool fully.
Once cooled cut the cake through the centre so that you have two even discs.
Spread the jam in the centre and sandwich the disks back together.
Take a extra tablespoon of jam and melt it with a half a tablespoon of warm water.
Brush this over the entire cake to make it easier to ice, it will stop crumbs getting into the icing.
To make the icing make sure to discard the runny liquid and only use the solid coconut cream.
It is also important to have it chilled as it whips up better.
With the whisk attachment in a mixer whisk the coconut cream with the icing sugar until and stiff enough to spread on the cake.
Spread it on top and around the sides of the cake with a spatula.
Press the coconut flakes into the icing while it is still soft.
Coconut Truffles
- 90 mls of cream
- 200 of dark chocolate, broken into pieces
- 1 tsp of vanilla
- 10g of soft butter
- desiccated coconut for rolling
Heat the cream until the shivering stage, just before it boils.
Remove from the heat and stir in the chocolate.
Place back over a very low heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.
Set aside until it cools and is solid enough to roll into balls.
Roll into 20 balls and then roll each ball in the desiccated coconut until coated.
Allow to firm up in the fridge or a cool place.
