Tag-Archive for ◊ coconut ◊

12 Oct 2019 Coconut-Banana Muffins
A whole pan full of Coconut Banana Muffins! What better way to start a day? Leftovers keep well, too!

I love muffins and I love all things coconut. I can’t think of anything better on a cool Sunday morning than a warm coconut muffin, a hot latte, some social media, an old fashioned magazine or newspaper, jammies, fluffy slippers…

This recipe makes 12 delicious muffins. The muffins are dense and sweet, the top is crunchy, the banana and coconut combination is heavenly. These muffins keep well on the counter for a few day. Warm muffins today, room temperature muffins tomorrow. Yes, please.

Coconut-Banana muffin for one.

Coconut-Banana Muffins

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour (250g)
  • 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon table salt
  • 1 cup mashed very ripe bananas (probably about 3 small/2 large bananas)
  • ¾ cup butter, melted
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • ½ teaspoon coconut extract (optional, but a nice to have. Rather than running around all over town for coconut extract, I order on-line)
  • 1 cup sweetened flaked coconut (divided use)
  • 1-2 tablespoons granulated or coarse sugar
  1. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper muffin cup liners.
  2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  3. Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.
  4. In another bowl whisk together mashed bananas, melted butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, optional coconut extract, and ¾ cup sweetened flaked coconut.
  5. By hand, fold flour mixture into mashed banana mixture and stir until just combined and all flour has been moistened. Don’t overmix.
  6. Portion batter into the 12 prepared muffin tin.
  7. Sprinkle each muffin with a bit of the remaining ¼ cup coconut and a sprinkle of granulated or coarse sugar.
  8. Bake muffins at 375 degrees until muffins are puffed and golden, about 25 minutes.
  9. Cool slightly before serving.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today. See you again soon!

29 Aug 2019 Coconut Mango Cheesecake

This is one of my favorite cheesecakes! It’s showy and special and tastes wonderful 🙂 The method for this cheesecake is different from my usual method, but it works like a dream, and I’ve never had this cheesecake crack. The only tricky part is getting the right ‘Cream of Coconut’. Try to find the Coco Lopez brand, or any other brand used for making mixed drinks such as the Pina Colada. Don’t use canned coconut milk or even the new canned coconut cream [this is getting so confusing!], you need Cream of Coconut. It’s sweet and thick. Here are pictures of the two brands I have used successfully.

Hope you can make this for a special occasion in your life. It’s a winner!

Coconut-Mango Cheesecake

Coconut Crust:

  • 2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
  • 8 whole graham crackers, broken
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, diced

Cheesecake:

  • 32-ounces Philadelphia-brand cream cheese (do not use reduced-fat, fat-free, or whipped) The cream cheese MUST be at room temperature. Do not proceed with cold cream cheese!
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1 15-ounce can (sweetened) cream of coconut (such as Coco López, look for it in the alcohol mixers section. Do NOT USE COCONUT MILK!)
  • 1 teaspoon coconut extract
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 5 large eggs

Glaze:

  • ¼ cup  water
  • 1 pkg unflavored gelatin
  • 2 ½-3 cups mango puree (from 2 16 oz packages frozen mango chunks)
  • 1/2 cup sugar, or to taste
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla

For crust:

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
  2. Blend all ingredients in processor until finely ground and sticking together, 1 to 2 minutes.
  3.  Press crumb mixture onto bottom and 2 1/2 inches up sides of 10-inch-diameter spring form pan with 2 3/4- to 3-inch-high sides.
  4. Bake crust until golden, 14 to 15 minutes.
  5. Cool crust on rack.
  6. Increase oven temperature to 425°F.

For filling:

  1. Blend cream cheese and sugar in bowl of electric mixer. Stir in cream of coconut, coconut extract and salt. Add eggs 1 at a time. Mix to blend.
  2.  Pour filling into crust. Bake cheesecake 10 minutes at 425°F .
  3. Reduce oven temperature to 250°F. Bake until center is softly set, about 1 hour 35 minutes longer.
  4. Turn off oven, keeping the oven door closed. Cool cake in oven 1 hour.
  5. Refrigerate cake, uncovered, at least 12 hours or overnight.

For glaze:

  1. Place water in small cup or bowl.  Sprinkle gelatin over water. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 10 minutes.
  2. Meanwhile, pour mango puree and sugar into small saucepan. Taste that flavor is correct. Add more mango puree or more sugar if needed.
  3. Stir mixture over low heat until sugar dissolves, bubbles form at edge of pan, and mixture is hot.
  4. Add gelatin mixture and stir 1 minute to dissolve. Stir in vanilla.
  5. Cool mango mixture until lukewarm, stirring occasionally.
  6. Pour glaze into center of cheesecake. Rotate and tilt the pan until glaze is spread evenly over top.
  7. Chill cheesecake to set glaze, approximately 3 hours.

Notes: DO AHEAD! This recipe can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and keep chilled.

13 Jun 2019 Cowboy Cookies
 |  Category: Cookies & Bars  | Tags: , , ,  | Leave a Comment
Crisp, buttery and slightly chewy

I have no idea why these cookies are called “Cowboy Cookies”. Coconut, oats and Rice Krispie’s don’t scream cowboy to me. Well, maybe the oats do. Legend has it that Laura Bush made these cookies popular after she submitted a recipe to Family Circle in 2000, which was running a best presidential candidate’s spouse’s cookie contest <sigh>. Laura Bush’s Texas Governor’s Mansion Cowboy Cookies won the contest. So maybe the fact that these cookies originate from/are popular in Texas make them “cowboy”?

Laura Bush’s recipe differs from mine in that hers has NO Rice Krispies but does have 2 cups of chopped pecans stirred in (4 years later she submitted the recipe again, with chocolate chips stirred in along with the pecans,but still no Rice Krispies! What was she thinking?). My recipe has no pecans or chocolate chips, although I am sure you can add some if desired.

I am pretty sure my recipe pre-dates Laura Bush’s published recipe. I think I started making them in the 1980s. I know my daughter Abby was baking them and selling them by the dozen in the early 2000s.

I like these cookies because, although they look like (and bake like) chocolate chip cookies, they are NOT Chocolate Chip Cookies (Laura Bush’s recipe seems a lot like Chocolate Chip Cookies though!). My Cowboy Cookies are slightly crisp and buttery with a slight chew from the coconut and oats, and they are not over-the-top sweet.

Cowboy Cookies

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup shortening (Crisco, do not use the butter flavored kind, just the plain, regular, old fashioned kind, either the sticks or the tub are OK)
  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon table salt
  • 2 cups quick cooking oats (NOT instant)
  • 2 cups Rice Krispies cereal
  • 1 cup Shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 325º. Beat the butter and shortening together for a minute or so.  Add in the sugars and beat for 5 minutes with an electric mixer.  Add in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Stir in vanilla. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Add flour mixture to butter-sugar-egg mixture.  Stir in oatmeal, Rice Krispies and coconut.  Drop by tablespoonful onto cookie sheet.  Roll dough into a ball, then flatten slightly with finger or palm of hand.  Bake in preheated 325º oven for 12-14 minutes.  Cookies will have a very light tan tinge when done.  Don’t over bake. Remove cookies from oven and cool on racks. Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

Thanks for stopping by my kitchen today!

10 May 2019 Tropical Mango Scones

It takes a lot to get true mango flavor in baked goods.  This scone recipe manages it but it does require mango in three different forms: crushed freeze-dried mango, dried mango, and diced frozen mango. Then throw in a bit of coconut and a bit of lime zest and you have a Tropical Mango Scone. You also have to add an egg. An egg? In a scone? I am usually a scone purist. No eggs! But I’ll make an exception, just this one time, because it works in this recipe.

The original recipe only called for frozen mango, which is interesting in itself. I’d never baked with frozen mango. I didn’t think it would work, but it did! I added the freeze-dried mango (always available at Trader Joe’s, and now starting to show up in main stream grocery stores) and the dried mango (available everywhere) to boost the flavor.

Tropical Mango Scones

  • 2 cups (260g) all-purpose flour
  • approx. 20 grams (less than one ounce) freeze-dried mango crushed to a fine powder
  • ½ cup sweetened flaked coconut
  • ½ cup diced dried mango
  • ½ cup sugar + additional teaspoon sugar (divided use)
  • 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon table salt
  • zest of 2 limes
  • ½ cup butter, frozen
  • ½ cup heavy cream + additional 1-2 Tablespoons (divided use)
  • 1 egg
  • 1  teaspoon vanilla
  • ½ cup dried mango, diced
  • 1 cup frozen mango, diced into ¼ inch chunks
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  3. Combine flour, crushed freeze-dried mango, flaked coconut, diced dried mango, sugar, lime zest, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Stir well to combine.
  4. In another bowl combine ½ cup heavy cream, egg, and vanilla and whisk until combined.
  5. GRATE the frozen butter into the flour mixture then, using a fork, stir the butter into the flour mixture until well combined.
  6. Drizzle the cream-egg-vanilla mixture over the flour-butter mixture. Using the fork, combine the ingredients into a cohesive ball, this may take awhile. If the mixture is too dry, work a little extra cream into the mixture.
  7. Gently fold in the frozen mango mini-chunks.
  8. Divide the dough in half. If necessary sprinkle with a bit of flour. Shape the dough into a circle about the size of a salad plate.
  9. Place onto one side of prepared baking sheet
  10. Using a sharp knife or a pizza cutter, divide dough into six equal pieces.
  11. Repeat with remaining dough in bowl (SEE NOTE BELOW).
  12. Brush tops of scones with the additional 1-2 heavy cream, then sprinkle with additional 1 teaspoon sugar.
  13. Bake for 18-20 minutes.
  14. Remove from oven and share 🙂

NOTE: The second half of the dough can be placed on a plate and frozen for later baking. No need to defrost before baking. Just place on a parchment lined baking sheet. Brush with heavy cream and sprinkle with sugar. Might need to bake 2-4 more minutes.

Thank you for stopping by my kitchen today!