- Weekend Brunch Flatbreads – Recipe - 22 January, 2016
- Winter sea salt brownies – Recipe - 19 November, 2015
- Grilled Aubergine Bruschetta - 19 August, 2013
So how excited are we all about the sun?! Even though I normally wear a shade of foundation best described as “hasn’t seen daylight in about a century” I have a painful urge to bin my tights and base all my meals around foods that can be made on a barbecue. But seeing as I doubt anybody is interested in my recipe for slightly burnt sausages, I figured I would instead provide you with a recipe that requires no cooking or baking at all. It is however incredibly messy.
If you have a horrifying aversion to things that are sticky/dusty/hard to clean up I would suggest you swiftly move on to a different recipe. If, however, you really enjoyed play-doh as a child (or adult, I am not judging) this is definitely the recipe for you. As you are making a cake that contains no flour, eggs or butter it essentially needs to be dried rather than baked. Despite the slight mess factor Coconut Ice is ridiculously fun and easy to make and doesn’t require a lot in the way of either ingredients or cooking skill.
I prefer mine chilled or borderline frozen, but as long as you keep it in an airtight box it will be good for at least a week no matter where you keep it. Just make sure it is thoroughly dried before you cut it or things will get a little squidgy.
200g desiccated (shredded) coconut
225g icing sugar (you will also need quite a bit for dusting your kitchen surface)
250ml condensed milk
2 tsp cinnamon
3 tsp cocoa powder
1. In a large mixing bowl carefully stir together your shredded coconut. I say carefully because otherwise you will soon be surrounded by a giant cloud of icing sugar. If your sugar has sat in your cupboard for a while you might want to sieve it first to get out the lumps.
2. Stir in the milk until everything is more or less combined. You will end up with an incredibly sticky mass that should more or less form a ball.
3. Divide your mixture and put half of it into a separate bowl. I weighed mine out because I am a little bit anal, but you can probably just eyeball it.
4. Add the cinnamon and cocoa powder to one portion of your mix and stir until thoroughly combined.
5. Coat a kitchen surface generously in icing sugar and make sure you have more to hand so you can add it when your fingers become completely stuck together.
6. Scrape the half of your mixture that you did not add cinnamon to out of the bowl and dump it on the kitchen surface. I would suggest doing it this way around, otherwise you will have to clean your work surface in between or the colours will get mixed up.
7. Cover the mix on your work surface, a rolling pin and your hands generously in icing sugar. Seriously it is impossible to overstate how sticky this stuff is.
8. Knead the dough a few times, keep adding icing sugar until it stops sticking to your hands/the work surface/any stray pets you might have. Once it has become suitably unsticky roll it out into a rectangle (2 long sides & 2 short sides) about 2/3 inches thick. Remember to check every once in a while that the dough is still not sticking to your work surface. If it is, add more icing sugar.
9. Rinse and repeat with the cinnamon & cocoa half of your dough. If you think the colour is becoming too light feel free to substitute cocoa powder for icing sugar during the rolling out process.
10. Place one layer of dough on top of the other. I would suggest moving the one that comes most easily off your work surface. Leave to dry out over night or for a good couple of hours and then cut into squares.
