Tag-Archive for ◊ coconut ◊

05 Jul 2010 Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chunks and Orange Zest
Author:  |  Category: Breakfast & Brunch, Cakes & Cupcakes  | Tags: , , , , , , ,  | Leave a Comment

Bon Appetit is my favorite food magazine. Every month there is one spectacular recipe after another. This month’s issue was no exception. For some reason, this cake was classified as a coffeecake. Very odd. This is a recipe for a very nice dessert cake. It’s not a big gooey layer cake with a lot of frosting. It’s a one layer cake rich with coconut, bittersweet chocolate chunks, the grated peel of a whole orange, and a coconut drizzle. (If you have the magazine, see pages 84, 85, and 91.) Love it! My five testers all gave it a thumbs up, too. There’s no doubt that I will be making this again.

Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chunks and Orange Zest

For Cake
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded coconut
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel (peel from one orange)
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or coconut extract)
1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate (use bars and break into 1/2-inch irregular pieces), divided use
extra 1/2 cup shredded coconut for topping

For Coconut Drizzle:
3/4 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons (or more) canned unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

Cake:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter 9-inch cake pan with 2-inch-high sides. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Stir in shredded coconut and set aside. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, and orange peel in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla or coconut extract. Add 1/3 flour mixture, beat until blended, then ½ coconut milk, then 1/3 flour, then ½ coconut milk, then last 1/3 flour mixture, beating just until blended after each addition. To make the chocolate chunks, leave the chocolate in wrappers and bang with a meat mallet. Fold 4 oz of bittersweet chocolate pieces (one entire bar) into batter. Spread batter evenly in prepared cake pan. Sprinkle remaining chocolate pieces (1/2 bar) over batter, then sprinkle with an additional ½ cup coconut. Bake cake until golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, tenting with sheet of foil if coconut atop cake is browning too quickly, 60 to 70 minutes. Transfer cake to rack and cool in pan 45 minutes.

Coconut Drizzle
Whisk powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons coconut milk, and coconut extract in small bowl to blend well, adding more coconut milk by 1/2 teaspoonfuls until mixture is thin enough to drizzle over cake. Remove cake from pan and drizzle with glaze. Do not over drizzle. Cool cake completely on platter. Cake can be made up to 1 day ahead. Cover cake and let stand at room temperature.

Thanks for being a fan,

06 Jun 2010 Toasted Coconut Ice Cream
Author:  |  Category: Ice Creams & Sorbets, Seasonal, Sweets  | Tags: , , ,  | Leave a Comment

Winner number one in the Ice Cream challenge! Toasted Coconut. MMMM…, tropical paradise. I am going out today to get some mangoes to serve with it. Tonight I will be dining on toasted coconut ice-cream with fresh mango cubes, in a homemade waffle cone, heaven-on-earth, yes? There are MORE ice cream recipes to follow soon. ALL of them made by me, tested by my followers and all pronounced GREAT. So run out, right now, and buy that Cuisinart Ice Cream maker from Costco. It comes with TWO freezer bowls! It’s an incredible deal and offer. If you have one ice-cream maker and one freezer bowl, you have to wait 12 to 24 hours between batches for the bowl to refreeze before making the next batch. With the two freezer bowls you can make one batch right after the other. Every house needs two flavors of ice-cream to choose from, right? Being crazy, I have two ice-cream makers and four freezer bowls… Oh, wait…, not crazy…, I have all this stuff so I can test recipes and get the best ones to you quickly!!! That’s right, not crazy!

This recipe came from the link I posted last week to The Tasty Kitchen. This is a “Philadelphia Style” (I learn something new every day!) ice cream, not “French Style”. “Philadelphia Style” ice cream refers to ice cream made without an egg custard base, “French Style” refers to making a egg custard. I prefer this method. Not only is egg free ice cream easier to make, I think it tastes better. Who wants an eggy tasting ice cream? Look at how easy this is…

Toasted Coconut Ice Cream

1 can (13.5 Ounces) Coconut Milk
1 can (12 Ounces) Evaporated Milk
1 can (14 Ounces) Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 cup Toasted Coconut (divided use)

Mix coconut milk, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk together and refrigerate until cool (maybe about 2-4 hours). Meanwhile, toast coconut in a dry frying pan over med-high heat, tossing constantly. Remove coconut to a cooling plate when coconut is toasty brown. Watch carefully! Coconut can go from perfect to burnt in about half a second! Pour cold milk mixture plus 1/2 cup of the toasted coconut into an ice cream freezer. Following factory instructions, churn until creamy and slushy. Transfer to an airtight container and freeze until desired consistency (about 4 hours). Can be kept frozen for a week or so. When ready to serve, scoop ice cream into serving dishes, sprinkle with extra toasted coconut (and maybe some fresh mango slices) and serve immediately. Makes approx. 4 cups of really yummy toasted coconut ice cream.

This recipe was adapted from one posted by ThreeManyCooks on the above website.

24 Feb 2010 Coconut-Lime Shrimp Bisque (in 20 minutes!)
Author:  |  Category: Seafood, Soups  | Tags: , , ,  | 6 Comments

It’s cold and raining here in California. Surprisingly cold. Soup weather cold. But it’s Tuesday at 6PM. I’m in the grocery store, hungry, and wanting soup for dinner. Do I grab a can? Noooo…, those cans do NOT contain “soup”! The contents of those cans have a soup LOOK and when warmed they have soup TEXTURE, but they really don’t have any taste. Look and texture can fool some people to think the can contents have taste, but they don’t. Oh dear, I got on my processed food rampage, didn’t I? So sorry. To make a long story short…, this soup is one of my favorites. Once you have all the ingredients it can be on the table in less than 20 minutes, and it tastes d-i-v-i-n-e. Don’t be scared of the ingredients, trust me and try it! My 15 month old grandson slurped up his bowl and then whined until he got to have some of mine. This is one soup where the broth is probably more yummy than the shrimp! Can you imagine? BTW, don’t use Jumbo Shrimp, they are too big for one bite and don’t fit on the spoons. You can make this with all shrimp, or half shrimp and fish, or use scallops or half scallops and half shrimp or half fish…, it’s all good.

Coconut-Lime Shrimp Bisque

1 T. olive oil
5 chopped shallots (about 3/4 cup)
1 T. minced fresh ginger
1 tsp. ground turmeric
1/4 tsp. ground cumin
8 oz. bottle Clam Juice (In a pinch, can sub chicken broth, or a can of clams with the juice)
14.5 oz. can petite diced tomatoes
13.5 oz can unsweetened coconut milk (the low fat version has no taste)
grated zest of one lime
1 1/2 – 2 lbs med/large raw (shelled) shrimp, firm white fish (cut into pieces about 1 1/2 inches square, or scallops (or any combination of the three)
3 T. freshly squeezed lime juice (from one large lime)
2 green onions, sliced
salt and pepper, to taste

Heat oil and saute shallots until tender, about 3 minutes. Add in ginger, turmeric, and cumin and saute for an additional minute. Stir in clam juice, diced tomatoes, coconut milk, lime zest, and shrimp, fish and/or scallops. Simmer until seafood is cooked, about 7 minutes. Stir in lime juice, green onions and salt and pepper, to taste. Serve. See how fast this is to make? You can do it! Makes 4 -6 servings.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today.  It’s always so good to have you here!


05 Feb 2010 Swedish Butter Cookies Three Ways
Author:  |  Category: Cookies & Bars, Sweets  | Tags: , , , , , , , , ,  | 2 Comments

The weekend is upon us and it sounds as if it’s going to be cold and wet almost everywhere. Let’s make cookies!  Here is my favorite recipe for butter cookies. It’s an easy one, and the cookies are melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  I have been baking these cookies exactly as the recipe specifies since the mid-1980s when my friend Kathy gave me the recipe (which she acquired from one of her students).  Just a few days ago, emboldened by all the foodie pages I have been looking at, I decided to play with the recipe a bit.  What fun!  One version, adding lemon peel, was only so-so, but the other two were excellent.  Now I am anxious to create a coffee/latte version. If I get one to work, you can be sure I’ll post it.  Let me know if you come up with any winning variations…, but don’t miss the originals, they are to die for!

Swedish Butter Cookies

1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. corn syrup
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Beat butter and sugar and corn syrup together with an electric mixer for about 3 minutes.  Stir in flour and baking soda.  Divide dough into 4 equal parts.  Roll each part into a roll about 6 inches long and 1 inch thick.  Place on a cookie sheet.  Cookies will spread a lot, so space them equidistantly. Bake in preheated 300 degree oven for 20 – 25 minutes.  Cut bars, at an angle, into slices while still hot.  I cut off the rounded ends, then slice each roll into 6 slices to make 2 dozen cookies per batch.  Cool on paper towel.

Coconut Butter Cookies (my favorite version)
Mix dough as above, adding in 1/2 tsp coconut extract with corn syrup.  Cover each roll with 1/2 to 1/3 cup sweetened shredded coconut.  Press coconut on roll, slightly flattening the rolls in the process.

Nutty Butter Cookies
Substitute 1/3 cup brown sugar for the 1/2 cup of white sugar.  Stir in 1/2 cup finely chopped almonds with flour.  Partially flatten the rolls before baking (with nuts, the dough doesn’t spread as much). Bake at 325 degrees for 20 – 25 minutes.

Lemon Butter Cookies
If you want to try it, I just added the grated rind of 1 large lemon… But the results weren’t nearly as tasty as the original version.  You simply have to make the originals!

What do you think?  Are you going to try this?
Whatever you decide, thanks for stopping by,

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