"Hey, this is one of your top 5 desserts!" This may be my ultimate favourite thing to hear from my family, particularly if the dessert in question is a product of my imagination and it turns out it is not just edible, but super delicious.

Following a recipe is one thing and for the most part, things will turn out just as they should. I also think that I have acquired at least that much experience to be confident enough that I can tweak a recipe to better suit my taste and need. I have also kinda made up recipes before by taking together pieces of different recipes and putting them together to form a new recipe (remember my amazing raspberry entremet). But making up a recipe from scratch .... that is a whole new territory. 

To go with the summer heat, I envisioned a moist tropical cake, combining pineapple and coconut for that summery feel. To celebrate this baking success, this cannot be just a coconut pineapple cake, it needs a name. So I christened it the Tropicana. Viva la Tropicana! Viva summer! (Ha ha Spanish is not my thing)

Oh and another bonus to this cake? It is completely dairy free!


For a 16 cm/6 inch cake:
2 eggs
100 g brown sugar
1 packet of vanilla sugar or 1 vanilla bean
40 ml oil
20 ml water
20 ml + 1 tsp rum
6 g baking powder
50 g flour
50 g + couple of tbsp dessicated coconut
can of canned pineapple (pineapple rounds)
20 g cornstarch
600 g coconut whipping cream


Separate the eggs and whisk the egg whites to a stiff meringue. Add brown sugar and vanilla to the egg yolks and whisk them together so that they double in size and get really pale in colour.

Add the oil to the yolks and whisk. Continue with the water and rum and lastly with the baking powder, flour and coconut. Fold in your meringue and transfer to a baking pan, lined with baking paper.

Bake at 175° C until the top is golden brown, but you need to test whether the cake is done with a toothpick. If the batter still sticks to the toothpick, cove the cake with tin foil so the top won't burn and check it every 5-10 minutes.

Drain the canned pineapple (don't throw away the juice, we'll need it later) and slice the pineapple rounds into pieces (you will probably have some leftover rounds). You can of course use fresh pineapple, if it is in season, but I just didn't want to bother with the peeling and the cutting. Whip the coconut whipping cream as instructed on the packaging.

You should get around 350 ml leftover pineapple juice from draining the pineapples. Just in case, check what it says on the label. Usually the amount of pineapple and the amount of juice are specified on the side of the can.  Measure out 20 - 30 ml juice for later. Also measure out a few tablespoons of juice t mix with the cornstarch. Once the cornstarch has dissolved, heat the juice and add the cornstarch mixture. Cook for a few minutes and you will see the juice getting more translucent and thick. Let it cool to room temperature. This will be part of our cake filling.

Once the cake and the pineapple filling are cooled, everything is set for assembly. Cut the cake into three rounds. Place the first round on the serving plate and line it with a cake ring. If you have it, also use the acetate foil, but don't worry, this works just fine without it.

Mix the pineapple juice, which we saved from before with a teaspoon of rum. Lightly brush the cake round with this mixture, then add approx 4 to 5 tablespoons of the pineapple filling and top with chopped pineapple.

Top the pineapple with coconut whipping cream and sprinkle with coconut.

Repeat with the second cake round. Brush the third round with pineapple juice mix just like the previous two, but don't top it with pineapple filling. Instead mix the leftover filling with leftover whipping cream. Use this mixture to frost the top and the sides of the cake. Actually I suggest letting everything set and settle for a few hours in the fridge with the cake ring still on, before attempting to remove it and to frost the outside of the cake. Sprinkle the whole cake with coconut.

cake coconut dairy free pineapple summer tropical Tropicana

julij 21, 2016

Do not ask me how I stumbled upon this recipe. Pure coincidence may the the best way to describe it, yeah and too much Youtube. Way too much and before I knew I came from one random pregnancy vlog (and I am not even pregnant) to watching coconut fried shrimp recipes. I quickly scribbled down the recipe, stored it (which in my case means I lost and found it twice before actually preparing it) and remember I had it one afternoon after work.

I still insist on preparing a home cooked lunch at east a few times a week after we get home from work, however this used to be a bit more relaxed than it is now, because it needs to be prepared as quickly as possible. Not because of me and my husband, but because the boys are able to ask "when is it going to be ready?" for a billion time in a span of 20 minutes. Think of Donkey in Shrek 2. So the first conditions is that the meal needs to be quick and uncomplicated. Ok it may not be the height of healthy eating, but I'll consider it an indulgence and still allow it once in a while. And this is a seriously tasty indulgence.

The original recipe amounts seemed kind of off to me, because I wanted the batter to be somewhat thicker, so this is the adjusted version, which worked great for me.

For the beer batter:
1 egg
100 g flour
1 tsp baking powder
150 ml beer

Along with that:
a little extra flour
desiccated coconut
half a kilo shrimp (preferably with tail ends still on)
frying oil (I used peanut oil)

Mix all the beer batter ingredients in a bowl so that you get a batter that is a bit thicker than pancake batter (but think of crepes, not american pancakes). There will be enough batter for half a kilo of shrimp and you will have some leftover, but it is easier to work with this amount. If you made less, so that it would be just enough, it would be more difficult to have all the shrimp properly coated in the batter.

Dust the shrimp with flour, dip them in the batter and then roll them around in the coconut. You can choose not to flour them beforehand, but the batter sticks to the shrimp easier and more evenly that way. This is also the step, where you will appreciate having the tail ends of the shrimp still attached.

Fry them in oil, until they are dark golden brown.

We had them for lunch, so I also prepared some curry rice as a side dish, but an interesting debate started during lunch, because these seem to be a perfect party food snack. All that is missing is some dips and ideas were thrown around like curry or chilli or sour cream dip. The list started to get out of hand, so I resolved to leave this for another time. Thought about writing it down, but I think that might be a lost cause given my lost and found record. At least I have this blog to help me remember :)

beer batter coconut fried party food shrimp snack

julij 16, 2016

It happens sometimes that you are left with an ingredient from a different recipe, which may be quite specific. The other day I had some condensed milk lying around from making key lime pie. While condensed milk may be more common in American kitchens, we don't use it that much in European kitchens. Well at least I don't ... not to anger any Europeans who may be more familiar with it :)

I made raffaello balls before, but it was a long time back and I only remember that the main ingredient was powdered milk. Given that I don't normally stock powdered milk (hell I wouldn't even know where to look for it in a supermarket) I decided to try my own version of these sweet coconut bites.

I knew that if you mix powdered milk, confectioners sugar and water, you actually get a homemade version of condensed milk, so it shouldn't be that difficult to recreate something similar. In the spirit of experimentation I went through my kitchen and found some white chocolate, which helps everything stick together.

For 14 bites:

10 g butter

80 g condensed milk

80 g white chocolate

60 g grated coconut + a little extra for rolling the balls

Melt butter in a pan over the stove or in a microwave and ad to the condensed milk. Melt white chocolate in a microwave or in a double broiler.

Mix contents of both bowls together. The mixture will become very thick, actually it will seize, but this time it is ok (in any other case, seized chocolate will give me nightmares). Add coconut, mix well and let cool in a fridge for about 30 minutes.

Take the cooled mixture, form little balls and roll them around in leftover coconut. Work quickly, since the longer you handle the balls, the stickier the mixture will get. Store them in a fridge (if there is any leftover). Even though in the end they do not taste anything like raffello, mine were gone in an instant.

balls bites chocolate coconut rafaelo raffaello white chocolate

junij 09, 2016