Tag Archives: coconut

Chocolate Chunk Coconut Flour Cookies

24 Oct

Multicultural Inspiration from…

the world of baking!

 

So, it’s been spoken about before, but I absolutely looooooove coconut. It brings me back to my holidays in Fiji. When I was younger, and had the metabolism of a speed train, my favourite snack was a cereal bowl full of shredded coconut and chocolate chips. No joke. So when I discovered I could by coconut flour, I jumped straight onto that wagon and ordered myself a kilo. And, naturally, the first thing that came to mind was coconut chocolate chip cookies. Because it’s the best combination ever.

I took some inspiration from the basics of Jamie Oliver’s Coconut Flour Cookie recipe, and, as always, put my own spin on it to make this small batch of cookies (double it for a bigger appetite!)…

  • 50g caster sugar
  • 50g granulated white sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 85g softened butter
  • 100g coconut flour
  • 40g milk cooking chocolate, roughly chopped

 

First up, preheat your oven to 190°C, and line a cookie tray with baking paper.

In a mixing bowl, place both sugars, the eggs, vanilla and butter…

… and beat well with an electric hand beater, until it looks a little like this…

Sift in the coconut flour, mix well to combine, and let the mixture sit for a few minutes while you chop up the chocolate.

Add in the chocolate chunks, mix it all together, and get ready to bake some cookies!

Now, you can make your cookies as big or small as you want – I decided to make this into little bite-sized pieces of deliciousness, so I used a tablespoon to scoop out chunks of cookie mixture and rounded them into balls.

Line em up, flatten em out a little, and pop em in the oven!

Bake for 12 – 15 minutes, let them cool for a few minutes, and then, just go nuts!!

They came out almost perfectly; soft and chewy, with the most amazing coconut flavour, although, they were a tiny little bit dry for my liking – more butter next time I think!

I also wouldn’t mind giving these little bad boys a try again with a bit of shredded coconut as well… and maybe another version with crushed toasted macadamias and white chocolate. Delicious!

Over to you, lovely readers – any favourite combinations like my coconut and chocolate fixation?!

 

 

Coconut Panna Cotta

11 Sep

Multicultural Inspiration from…

Italy

One of the many things I love about being Italian is the dessert. I have a sweet tooth, courtesy of my dad, and I’m learning to make peace with that and all it brings (including having a perpetual layer of fat around my formerly flat stomach). After all, it was a wise person who once said “life’s too short to skip dessert.” With those wise words in mind, I decided to attempt a fairly traditional Italian dessert that I’ve only ever eaten once or twice; panna cotta.

I’ve typically avoided panna cotta in the past because my stomach hasn’t always agreed with desserts of the creamy or custardy nature. Not sure why, but I always ended up feeling incredibly sick after eating anything with a lot of cream in it. Never ice cream though, only ever cream. I know, I was a weird child. How ever, I’m finding that the older I get and the more in love I fall with all things food, the more willing I am to try things that have previously not agreed with me. After flicking back over a few photos from a work function around a year ago and noticing a little lump of white, I remembered that little lump was, in fact, a white chocolate panna cotta. And I loved it. I wasn’t super confident in my abilities to replicate it and not let myself down, so I decided to try a coconut panna cotta instead (as you know, I am ever so slightly obsessed with coconut!).

The inspiration for my recipe came from dessert king David Leibovitz’s recipe for the Perfect Panna Cotta. But, of course, with my own twist. Here’s what you’ll need for your own coconut-infused piece of heaven (makes 6 small cups)…

  • 400ml coconut cream
  • 40g caster sugar
  • 1tsp vanilla extract
  • 2tsp powdered gelatin
  • 3 tbsp cold water
  • 3tbsp desiccated coconut
  • coconut spray oil

Yup, that is seriously all you need. This really is very easy, no tricks – I swear!

Ok first things first. Put the coconut cream and the sugar in a small saucepan over medium heat, until the sugar dissolves.

Take it off the heat and stir in the vanilla.

Sprinkle the gelatin over the cold water in a medium bowl (don’t go too small, as you’ll be adding the cream mixture into this bowl later), and let it just sit for 5 minutes or so.

Ok, once the gelatin has rested, gently pour the warm coconut cream mixture into the gelatin, and stir until the gelatin dissolves.

Next, add in the desiccated coconut, and mix that in too.

Lightly spray 6 little ramekins with the coconut oil spray, and pour the panna cotta mixture, evenly splitting the mixture between them.

And guess what? You’re done! That’s literally all there is to it! Put them in the fridge, let them set for at least 5 hours (overnight is better if you can wait!), and then dig in!

First up, I sprinkled mine with a little shredded coconut, because in my world, there’s no such thing as too much coconut!

I nervously dug my spoon into my panna cotta, and got ready to potentially be quite sick…

… and WOW!!! It was delicious!! It was soooo soft and silky smooth, studded with the tiny, little bits of desiccated coconut. I was really surprised, actually – I didn’t think I’d be able to make something that I hadn’t ever really eaten before!

The only thing I thought I could have improved on was the coconut I topped it with – toasted coconut would have been much better… so, I justify my second panna cotta with that reasoning.

Yeah, winner. Massive winner. The toasted coconut just brought out the coconut flavour so much more, and the crunch really added another dimension of yum to it all! I was really glad I finally gave it a try, and since then, have being trying even more foods that I never really liked before – and guess what? I really like a lot of them now! Yay!!

Over to you guys – what have you grown up hating to eat and now love?!

Lime and Coconut Curd

18 Jul

 Multicultural Inspiration from…

Fiji

Fresh off the success of Sous-Jeff’s Chilli Jam (which I can’t try because it’s too spicy!), I decide that it’s time for me to try a condiment of my own. Not to be outdone, I decide to try not one, but two preserves – a lime and coconut curd (again, coming from the love of lime and coconut I developed over my many visits to Fiji), and strawberry jam. First up is my curd.

I have very fond childhood memories of lemon curd used as butter, coated on my toast, cake, biscuits, and whatever else I could get my little hands on. I absolutely loooooved the citrusy punch of the lemon combined with the secondary, super sweet sugar hit.

After a bit of googling and a bit of imagination, I’ve looked at around 5 or 6 different recipes, and decide to take elements of all of them, and a lot of my own imagination. And I’m glad I did, because it came out absolutely AMAZING!!!!

Here’s what I did to get it right…

First, I passed 3 lightly whisked eggs through a strainer, to make sure the curd is super smooth.

Then, I grated the zest of one lime, and squeezed the juice of 2 limes.

I added the lime juice and zest, along with 100g of butter and 200g of sugar to a pot…

… and stirred and melted it all together, until the sugar had dissolved and the butter had melted, and it looked…

… like this!

I removed it from the heat and added to the melted mixture the strained eggs, and stirred with a wooden spoon to combine it.

Then, I put it back onto a low heat for about 10 minutes, constantly stirring, until it was thick and coated the wooden spoon…


…like this!

I added in 50g of dessicated coconut next…

… gently stirring it to combine.

And that’s it! Finished! That simple! Into the jar it went, and I left it to cool slightly for about 15 minutes before putting the lid on.

It is absolutely delicious, and I can’t tell you how in love with this curd I am!! I loooove tropical flavours, none more so than coconut and lime; I just find the flavours so refreshing, yet it really packs a punch.

It’s just the right balance of sweet and tangy, and goes absolutely perfectly with buckwheat pancakes :)

I was surprised at how easy it was to make, and Would like to try a passion fruit and coconut combination too.

Over to you, lovely readers – what combinations have you, or would you like to try?!

White Chocolate and Coconut Ice Cream

11 Jul

Multicultural Inspiration from…

family  


  
“I feel like ice cream.”
“We don’t have any.”
“I know… I could make some..?”
“It wouldn’t freeze in time to eat it tonight.”
“I know… I could make some for tomorrow night…?”
“Do you even know how to make ice cream?”
“I could Google it…”
This was the conversation that went on between Sous-Jeff and I on Friday night. Ice cream cravings are a killer. And they must be dealt with swiftly. On goes the computer and I click onto Google.

Dad discovered the ice cream attachment to mum’s Kitchen Aid last summer, and has been making the most amazing ice cream ever since. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the ice cream attachment, or the patience to make dad’s super chocolate. I do, however, have some standard Kitchen Aid attachments, a spare $10, and just enough energy to get down to the super market and back. I also had possession of a recipe that would produce a batch of ice cream quite quickly and with minimal effort and ingredients. This, I had to try.

I adapted my ice cream recipe from this one found on the recipes.com.au website. I looooove the combination of any chocolate with coconut, and have really been enjoying the white chocolate lately, so I decide to stick with that combo.

All I needed to make it was:

  • a 395g tin of sweetened condensed milk
  • 600ml cream (I used 300ml light cream and 300ml standard cream)
  • 1/4 cup coconut rum
  • 1/4 cup dessicated coconut (I used 1/2 cup dessicated, 1/2 cup shredded – I told you I like coconut!)
  • 1/2 packet Nestle white chocolate melts, melted (I may have used 3/4 of a packet… and broke the rest of the packet up into smaller pieces to add in later…)

All you need to do is melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over simmering water…

… combine the creams, condensed milk and rum in a bowl…

… and then I put the flat beater attachment onto my Kitchen Aid, but I’m guessing you could just do this part with electric hand beaters (it’d just take a bit longer).

I also decided that putting the guard on would be a good idea, having an inkling that this process could get messy (and it did)…

… and I just left the Kitchen Aid to do it’s thing for 15 minutes or so, until it was nice and thick like this..

Add in the melted white chocolate, white choc chips and coconut, and gently fold in..

… until it looks something like this…

… and pop it into a plastic tub and into the freezer over night!

With the ice cream freezing away, Sous-Jeff and I put on a dvd and fall asleep, almost forgetting about our little creation… Until about 10am the next morning when I simply cannot wait any longer and absolutely MUST try some!

I had my concerns, with this not being a “real” ice cream, made in a “traditional,” proper fashion, but upon tasting a scoop of this creamy, sweet goodness, all of my concerns vanished.

It scoops out relatively easily, and has the beautiful silky, creamy taste of the condensed milk (which I love), complementing the coconut and chocolate perfectly. I may have put a little too much chocolate in there, but that didn’t bother me too much! Sous-Jeff on the other hand thought that it detracted from the ice cream a little.

I also discovered another fabulous add in to my ice cream – I had some left over egg whites from something else I’d made the afternoon before, and whisked them up with some sugar and some more coconut, baked them in the oven for 20 minutes or so, crumbled them up and added my newly made coconut macaroons to my ice cream – YUM!!!

Over to you lovely readers – if you could make any flavour ice cream, what would it be? And what would you top it with?

Babka Bakery Cafe and Casa Iberica

9 Jul

Multicultural Cuisine of…

Russia…

and Spain

“You ever been to that Spanish supermarket place on Johnson St?” Sous-Jeff asks me randomly one day. Huh? Sous-Jeff had been out having a drink with a friend of ours, a vegetarian and big Mexican food lover, who told him about it. When Sous-Jeff arrived at his house for a quiet beer or 7, Mr. Vego was cooking up a chickpea and lentil curry, which captured Sous-Jeff’s attention and senses.

From what Sous-Jeff can tell me, there’s some sort of supermarket on Johnson St that sells Mexican and Spanish groceries and food – things like black beans, chorizo and the like. With no other information to go from, I investigate further and discover the boys are talking about Casa Iberica. In that case, yes, I have heard of it, but no, I’ve never actually been before. With Sous-Jeff having a day off work on the same day as my day off, the planets aligned, and off we go to do some shopping!

With plenty of time to kill and tummies already grumbling, we decide it’s lunch time, and to just wonder into the next place we walk past. That place is Cafe Umago, at 171 Brunswick St. In we walk, and none of the wait staff seem to have noticed us. So we sit down and help ourselves to a few menus. 15 (yes, FIFTEEN) minutes later, we haven’t received so much as a side glance from either of the two waiters roaming the bar area of the cafe. One of them has walked past us twice while clearing another table, but still hasn’t bothered to so much as make eye contact with us. 20 minutes after walking in to Cafe Umago, we walk out, very disappointed, and absolutely starving.

Not wanting to be disappointed any further, we stroll on into Naked for Satan, where we know we can’t be let down. It was around about 1:45pm on a Friday afternoon, and it was still fairly busy. Drinks in hand, we grab a plate each, fill up, and crash on a couch, devouring our food as if we hadn’t been fed in a week.

It’s a beautiful day, so we decide to leave the car and just wonder around on foot, which as a great option, as we came across this:

Awesome! But anyway, we were still a little peckish, so I suggest a stop into Babka Bakery for a little dessert action…

Babka Bakery Cafe
358 Brunswick St,
Fitzroy
(03) 9416 0091

A cosy little cafe, it is absolutely packed with people. Some are eating eggs on toast, some are eating lunch, and others, like us, are enjoying something sweet with a tea or coffee. From the moment we walked in until the moment we left, there was a line from the counter to the front door, people wandering in and out to either have a sit down feed, or to grab some bread to take with them on their way. I wanted to try everything, but Sous-Jeff and I decide to be good and share, so I’m sent to the counter with his wallet to order. Mistake. We decided on a small piece of Chocolate Mudcake. I may have gotten a slightly bigger piece. And a cookie. Oops.

Thick, moist, chocolatey and delicious. It was a darn good chocolate cake, although I think it would have been even better warmed up.

I also grabbed a lemon coconut and poppy seed biscuit. I’m stared down by Sous-Jeff who’s trying to make me feel guilty. “I couldn’t just leave it there, it was looking at me, look how nice it looks!” I protest, weakly.

I was expecting a nice, soft, chewy biscuit. I got a very hard one. I was very surprised, but pleasantly so. It was absolutely delicious, and I think I may have even enjoyed it more than the chocolate (which is very unusual for me!) – the combination of the citrus and coconut was beautiful, and I really enjoyed the crunch of the cookie. Luckily for me, Sous-Jeff wasn’t a fan, so I didn’t have to share!

All of that said though, I wasn’t as impressed as I should have been after having visited this Fitzroy institution. My reasoning behind this is that they are known more for their bread and pastry than their cakes and cookies. But I wasn’t really feeling like a loaf of bread to nibble on for dessert! Therefore, my rating is based solely on THIS visit.

Would rate it 6 out of 10.


Babka Bakery Café on Urbanspoon


Tummies fed, it’s time to get to our final stop – Casa Iberica. Footing it again, we see some more awesome street art, which we love even more because we’re both huuuuge basketball fans:

Casa Iberica
25 Johnson St,
Fitzroy
(03) 9419 4430
Visit Website

Ahhh here we are! Finally! We walk into a treasure trove of imported goodies. Here’s some of the amazing products we found…

Everything from paella rice (above) to chilli sauces (about 300 different types – Sous-Jeff bought about 4 of them), and everything in between. We came home with the above mentioned chilli sauces, quite a few bags of dried herbs, paella rice, black beans and refried beans, chickpea flour, and a nice, fresh, chorizo empanada. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite make it to get photographed – it was sooooo tasty, and I’d highly recommend picking one up if you make a trip to Casa Iberica!

Needless to say, I made an absolutely killer paella for dinner after this trip, and I plan on heading back next week to pick up some more supplies, including some good, thick choriza, jamon ham and some of those little clay dishes that you see huervos rancheros baked in. I feel like getting my Spanish cooking on now – I’m inspired!

Casa Iberica on Urbanspoon

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