For a while now I’ve been eyeing the Coconut Bread that is one of the signature recipes of Bill Granger, an Australian chef whose restaurant has the excruciating-for-those-of-us-who-respect-the-apostrophe name of bills. Even though the abuse of apostrophes causes me great spasms of torture, bills coconut bread truly won me over. It is absolutely fantastic and it will definitely become part of my regular repertoire.

I did make a couple of changes to the recipe, such as cutting the sugar by half. It was still plenty sweet (and honestly, why in the name of Callebaut do I love sweets this much yet am so darn sensitive to sugar?), and crunchy with some Demerara sugar I sprinkled on top. The outside of the bread has a crisp and crumbly crust, while the inside is fragrant and particularly good when eaten hot from the oven.

This coconut bread really is more bready than cakey, and thus well suited for topping with butter, spreads such as lime marmalade (as Granger suggests), or a tropical fruit curd, like naranjilla or passion fruit.

Naranjilla, aka Lulo, is a fruit common to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Despite its Spanish name (naranjilla translates to “little orange”), it isn’t a citrus at all, but a member of the nightshade family. The outer skin, however, is bright orange in color while the flesh and juice are dark green and very sour. To tell the truth, I knew absolutely none of this when I spied a package of it in in Reyna’s, a local Latin American grocer. It was nudging cozily against the frozen passion fruit and mango purées I like to buy there, and I picked it up out of curiosity more than anything else.

Straight out of the package, the purée tastes merely sour without much nuance, and I wondered whether there was any hope for it at all. Also, the Internets were of no help whatsoever in providing answers on what to do with it (other than making a sweetened juice, which seemed a little uninspired). But I shrugged my shoulders and tried to made it into a fruit curd, which ended up being an excellent way to coax out the tart and unusual flavor. Adding plenty of sugar is essential, which allows the fruit to hold onto some of its tartness (which is similar to that of passion fruit) while unveiling notes like unripe strawberry or perhaps lemon. Describing the flavor is a not easy, but at any rate it was quite pleasant.

The only problem with the naranjilla curd is the color. A fruit with swampy green flesh does not a pretty curd make. The purée wasn’t very nice-looking to begin with, and unfortunately adding eggs and so forth made it take on a rather hideous green/yellow/grey hue that resembles nothing more than the particularly rich contents of Lucifer’s own nose-rag. Sorry for the disgusting metaphor, but as you can see, it isn’t going to win any beauty contests:

I think a few drops of green food coloring might make it somewhat more vibrant and appealing, but all I had was some vegetable dye made from beet juice, and a certain mad scientist convinced me that it would be a terrific injustice to try coloring it red or pink. If you try making it - and I suggest you do! It really is tasty and different - just ask your guests to close their eyes or hide it under something like meringue. Actually, I think making it into a meringue pie or tart would be very nice indeed.

Coconut Bread
Adapted from Bill Granger

2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup superfine sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened dessicated coconut
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons Demerara sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F and butter or spray with cooking spray a 8 1/2 x 4 inch loaf pan.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, and vanilla in a small bowl. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon. Stir in the sugar and coconut. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the egg mixture, stirring until just combined. Add the melted butter and stir just until mixture is smooth (do not overmix).

Spoon batter into pan, smoothing the top. Sprinkle Demerara sugar over and bake at 350°F for 30-40 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool bread for 5 minutes in pan and transfer to a rack to cool completely. Cut into thick slices to serve.

Naranjilla (Lulo) Curd

3/4 cup frozen naranjilla puree (such as Goya brand), thawed
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Sift the cornstarch with the sugar (this is important, otherwise it clumps). Whisk all ingredients together in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan and heat on a medium flame, stirring constantly until the curd thickens and begins to bubble (about 5 minutes). Immediately remove from heat and continue stirring. Push warm curd through a sieve into a bowl and cool completely in the refrigerator (about 1 - 1 1/2 hours).

Posted by the cookworm on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 8:10 pm.