Coconut Shards (Recipe by Ray McVinnie)

These are very similar to brandy snaps but are cooked in the oven in one large ‘sheet’ and then broken up into shards.

I came across this recipe in the glossy supplement of the Sunday Newspaper. It is a recipe by Ray McVinnie, Cuisine Magazine’s Food Editor, and MasterChef judge.

Mum and I didn’t have any long strand coconut, so used the standard short cut coconut, but if you can, use the long strands as this will give a better result.

COCONUT SHARDS

These are like broken up coconut brandy snaps

50g each of butter, golden syrup, caster sugar, and plain flour.

Pinch of salt

1 tspn ground ginger

½ tspn lemon juice

½ cup long strand desiccated coconut.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius

Line a large baking tray with baking paper.

Put the butter, golden syrup and sugar into a saucepan over low heat and gently heat until everything is melted.

Remove from the heat, add the flour, salt, ginger, and lemon juice and beat until smooth.

Stir in the coconut.

Pour the mixture onto the paper-lined baking tray. Spread it out so it is about ½ cm thick (or slightly thinner).

Place in the oven and bake 10 minutes or until golden.

Remove from the oven and cool it completely until it’s hard and brittle.

Break into dramatically shaped pieces.

They will keep in an airtight container for a week.

Serving suggestion: serve with Instant Feijoa Ice-cream (to see a picture of Coconut Shards with Instant Feijoa Ice-cream see my previous blog).

The recipe for Coconut Shards was part of a larger recipe that included Mango Semifreddo, so look out for this in a future blog post.

Recipe from: Sunday Newspaper Supplement: 2 March 2014, page 28.