SHF #33 Tropical Paradise

This is my entry for this month’s “Sugar High Friday” that is hosted by Mary at Alpineberry. The theme is “Tropical Paradise”, a perfect theme for the summer, i.e. for those who have summer now. Well in Sweden we are supposed to have summer but it just hasn’t arrived yet. I wonder if it ever will this year. So, to make these tropical coconut sweets was a perfect way to escape the rain and to dream away.

I chose to make a typical Mexican candy called Cocada. Cocada is made of fresh coconut and lots of sugar. It is chewy, very moist and you could say it's a sweet candy with Caribbean written all over it.

Cocada
225 g fresh shredded coconut (doesn’t work with coconut in a bag)
3,5 dl sugar
2 dl water
5 dl milk
1/2 vanilla bean
3 egg yolks
food colouring (optional)


Put coconut, 1,5 dl sugar and water into a sauce pan and cook over medium high-heat for 30-40 minutes. Coconut needs to get transparent with no water in the pan.

In another sauce pan put milk, the rest of the sugar and vanilla bean and while stirring constantly cook over medium-high heat for 30-40 minutes. The mixture needs to get a bit thicker and reduced. Add coconut mixture and mix well. Set aside to cool down a bit.

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Beat the yolks, add them to the coconut mixture and cook over low-heat for a couple of minutes. If you would like to colour the mixture divide the batter here and colour it. Butter a baking pan and pour the batter into it. It should be 1 cm thick. Bake on 200 degrees for 15-20 minutes. When done, let it cool down and then cut into small pieces.