Coconut Toast

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Last year, about this time, I made Coconut Bread (from Smitten Kitchen... via The Wednesday Chef via the NY Times via Bills breakfast menu) and basically said nothing about it. Except that I made it. It deserves more than that, especially since you can make it into coconut toast with maple syrup a la Lavish Habit in Balham, London.

Lavish Habit is small-ish, rustic cafe with lovely cakes set casually on the counter, Monmouth Coffee, and a vintage store in the basement. Very fun and super cozy. When I was in London a couple summers ago, I made sure to stop at the cafe whenever I could, since it was on the way to my closest underground stop.

So, they have coconut toast. A lightly sweetened loaf that is thickly sliced, toasted, dusted with a little powdered sugar (which I decided against below), then served with a dish of salted butter and, this is key, a small jug of maple syrup. I'm not sure I've ever had coconut and maple so beautifully paired together.

The recipe calls for sweetened shredded coconut, but I only had unsweetened, toasted coconut ribbon on hand. The sweetness was perfect here (because you'll want to put that maple syrup on there...), however, the texture of the loaf would certainly benefit from the more delicate shredded coconut. I also upped the cinnamon to 1.5 tsp... 'Cause it's cold out there.

As per my baking mo, this loaf comes together fast (and even in one bowl if you skip the browned butter part and aren't super particular about the wet-dry ingredient thing). It's in the oven for an hour or so, and will make your apartment/house smell amazing. And every time you make a slice of 'toast', it'll impart that nutty-cinnamony aroma all over again.

The Don de Dieu Caramel Pudding Cake

A couple Fridays ago I did end up making the Don de Dieu cake from the Unibroue site. I love the idea of the recipes from this site, mostly, of course, because they incorporate some beautiful beer. But they are not as detailed as I'd like with the directions. For instance, this recipe said to pour the caramel into a cake mould then pour the batter on top. But what size of cake mould? What type?

We ended up using one of those giant Pyrex cake pans (it got the job done, but of course it's not the most aesthetically pleasing thing ever; probably individual ramekins would be better, especially since the caramel bottom made it so difficult to 'scoop'), and ended up with a lot of cake. Thankfully it turned out well, although it was far better once left to cool until it was just slightly warm, allowing the beer flavours to surface. All that said, this thing was incredibly sweet - an entire can of maple syrup will do that I suppose (good thing we got all those cans at a good price in Québec this past summer).

We served the cake up to a friend after a main of La Fin du Monde Salmon and Pearled Barley (that recipe was excellent), and it was a great way to finish the evening. That was also the evening all the snow started, which made this warm cake even better.

Tucking it away in a container in the freezer, we've been warming pieces of it up on select evenings for dessert. Sadly it's almost gone, so a new dessert is going to have to take its place sooner or later... maybe some good brownies.