Mandarin orange coconut cake
Posted: December 15, 2011 Filed under: Dessert, Pastry and Baking | Tags: Baking, Cake, Coconut, Food blogger recipe, Mandarin orange, Sugar Leave a comment »
For obscure reasons I was not able to find out, in Switzerland tradition include giving bags of mandarin oranges, peanuts and a few chocolates. The kind of thing you might get at office or from a distant relative…. I was looking for a Christmassy dish, when I saw this on Cinco Quartos de Laranja who had seen it on All Recipes and then tweaked it a bit. By a happy coincidence, I actually had way too many mandarin oranges on the fruit bowl, a tiny bit of coconut in my cupboard and just enough time to bake it. And, voila!, a Christmassy and at the same time fresh and casual dish. Actually, it is also delicious and light, with different flavors and textures in each bite. An excellent way of fooling kiddies into eating their daily dose of citrus.
Mandarin orange coconut cake
Ingredients
- 200g flour and 1 spoon of baking powder, sifted
- 175g sugar
- 170g unsalted butter
- 150mL of mandarin orange juice
- The zest of 3-4 mandarin oranges
- 30g dry powdered coconut
Method
Preheat the oven to 180C. Coat a baking tray with baking spray (or butter and flour)
in a large bowl, beat the butter and the sugar until light and pale yellow.
Add the egg one at a time, beating for 1 minute after each addition.
Fold in the flour and mix well. Once it is well mixed, add the coconut, the mandarin orange juice and zest. Mix until the mixture is uniform.
Put the cake tin in the preheated oven. Bake the cake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean (about 30min)
Like this:
Breakfast oat bars
Posted: October 11, 2011 Filed under: Cereal, Snacks, Vegetarian | Tags: Breakfast, Brunch, Cereal bars, Cereals, Coconut, Condensed milk, Cranberry, oats, Peanuts, Snacks, Sugar Leave a comment »
It came to my attention that yesterday, October 1oth, was World Porridge Day. While it is unlikely I’ll post a porridge dish any time soon, I indeed had on archive something that called for oats. It is a super easy recipe of home-made breakfast by Nigella I first saw on Canela moída. I tend to avoid this sort of snacks, no matter how many claims of “healthy food” they have. Most of the times they are too sugary, too chewy, too fatty, too synthetic, too caloric…. But, this home-made one is almost a guilt-less treat, packed with different flavors and textures. A healthy sugar-rush, if you will.
As usual, a few tweaks. Cranberries are difficult to source in this part of world, so I used muesli oats with added fruit. But, this is the type of dish you can do with your favorite ingredients, as long as you keep the proportion of solids and condensed milk the same. It is very quick to do, but it takes about one solid hour to bake and another one to get it cool.
Be warned: once you start doing this, there is no back to the vending machine to get a plastic one.
Breakfast oat bars
Ingredients
- 1 x 397g can condensed milk (=1 tube of condensed milk)
- 350g oats (not instant) with 50% added fruit, including a lot of cranberries (original recipe called for 250g rolled oat and 100g dried cranberries.
- 75g shredded coconut
- 125g mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, sesame)
- 125g natural unsalted peanuts
Method
Preheat the oven to 130°C/gas mark 1/2, and oil a 23 x 33 x 4cm baking tin, or use a throwaway foil one.
Warm the condensed milk in a large pan.
Meanwhile, mix together all the other ingredients and then add the warmed condensed milk, using a rubber or wooden spatula to fold and distribute.
Spread the mixture into the tin and press down with the spatula or, better still, your hands to even the surface. Just make sure you are wearing disposable vinyl gloves to do this, otherwise you will end up with the sticky oats all over your fingers.
Bake for 1 hour, then remove from the oven and, after about 15 minutes, cut into four across, and four down to make 16 chunky bars. Let cool completely
Like this:
Coconut and zucchini bread
Posted: August 8, 2011 Filed under: Dessert, Vegetarian | Tags: Cake, Coconut, Courgette, Food blogger recipe, Sugar, Zucchini 4 Comments »
I saw it on Canela Moída, whom had seen it on The Novice Housewife, whom had seen it on Thru The Bugs On My Windshield, whom had seen it on Meet the Swans whom had seen it on Cooking Light Comfort Food Cookbook. Somewhere along the way, the bananas in the original recipe were replaced by an equivalent amount of zucchini (= courgette=calabacin). The combination of flavors sounds a bit iffy – Zucchini? in a cake?? with coconut??? But, have not prejudices: the result is scrumptious. Not only it passed the 11-year old test, but also the 8-month eat it all with gusto and impatience. If he only knew those green dots belongs the same family than the green soups he spits all over himself…
Some bloggers made a Coconut Rum Lime glaze to put on top of it. I am not a big fan of sugary things and excessive ornamentation of cakes, and skipped it. Keeping on sugar matters, this cake is not at all sweet. If you have a sweet tooth, you might want to add more sugar than the quantity I used. Or replace the zucchini by an equivalent amount of bananas.
Coconut Zucchini Bread
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup butter (about 60g)
- 1 cup sugar (about 200g. You might want to increase the amount, if you like yours more sweet)
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 1/2 cups ripe zucchini, grated (about 1 medium size
2zucchinis,app 120g) - 1/3 cup plain yogurt (I used a whole small pack, with about 180g, minus 1 table spoon))
- 1 teaspoon rum (I used Malibu – maybe a little more than a 1 teaspoon)
- The seeds of a vanilla pod (or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract)
- 2/3 cup grated coconut (about 100g)
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 cups flour (about 250g)
Methods
Pre heat the oven to 180 oC . Grease a loaf pan with butter and powder it with flour.
Cream butter and sugar until the mixture is white and fluffy. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing well.
Add the zucchini, the yogurt, the vanilla seeds and the rum. Beat until well blended.
Fold in the coconut and all the dry ingredients, and mix until just blended (do not over stir).
Spoon the batter into the loaf pan previously buttered.
Bake for about an hour, or until toothpick comes out clean from the middle of the bread.
Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes and then transfer to serving plate.
Coconut Rum Lime Glaze
Ingredients
- 3 cups sugar
- The seeds of a vanilla pod (or 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract)
- 1 teaspoon of rum or rum extract
- 3 teaspoon of freshly squeezed lime juice
- Milk as required to get the glaze to the right consistency (you can use coconut milk, in case you have that in hand)
- Roasted coconut to taste
Method
Mix all ingredients except the milk in a medium bowl. Add milk until it becomes a thick but smooth glaze. Set aside.
Toast coconut under the broiler until just browned. Set aside.
Drizzle glaze over bread. Top with toasted coconut and lime zest.
