Yum Noir: Coconut Sweetbread

It’s a trini thing but I’ll help you understand. I have vivid memories of Christmas morning and they all involve food-particulary pone and sweetbread. I would go out on Christmas eve and come home in the early morning to my mom in her red robe or green house dress getting breakfast ready. The house smelled delicious. ham, fresh bread, sweet bread and pone. I hope to give my kids the same memories and it starts by learning the recipes. I hope this comes out the right way-I’m a way better baker than I am a cook. I can cook, but I rarely mess up baked goods. Mom left me to make a sweetbread and after I made it, tasted it and rated it, I discovered that coconut isn’t good for babies that are being breastfed. (Sidebar-I truly believe you are supposed to just drink water and eat white bread for a healthy breast feeding diet. Everything I eat is giving her gas, WTF!!)

Anyway, in hindsight my mom should’ve been present to watch me make it since I don’t pay attention to things like consistency when I watch her bake. I set the mood for my baking and got my hands dirty. I need music when I’m in the kitchen so i juiced up the Sonos system and my song was on, which made my mood even better.

Traditional sweetbread uses chopped mixed fruit, like cherries and these other nasty things, but since I don’t like them, I don’t use them. You know what I’m talking about too, you see them in fruit cake. Ick. I just use coconut and raisins. The coconut was chopped up in the food processor.

I don’t think I made it fine enough but thank goodness for that damn Cuisinart. Back in the day I used to grate coconut and all my knuckles would be sore from hitting the grater. Am I glad those days are over. My kids would never know what these tasty treats were if I had to rely on old methods.

I followed the recipe and then I got confused because I wasn’t too sure what the consistency should be. I’ve made regular bread before but this isn’t regular bread so I did what I thought was the best thing, called my mom. She says “just add water until it gets to the right consistency” *pause* is she serious?

Anyway, I winged it and it came out pretty but it tasted weird.

I’m not sure if I over mixed it, added to much water and/or milk…I have no clue but I’ll have at it again sometime next week and see what happens. If you want to give it a go, here’s the recipe:

• 2 ounces butter, softened
• 1-1/8 cup of granulated sugar
• 1 egg, well beaten
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• 2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons and 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1-1/2 cups shredded coconut
• 1/4 cup chopped dried mixed fruit (again, I hate this so I don’t use it)
• 1/4 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease two 5×9 inch loaf pans and set aside.

Blend together the butter, sugar, eggs, evaporated milk and almond extract.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and cinnamon (4 times). Add to wet ingredients and stir.

Add coconut, coarsely mixed dry chopped fruit and raisins. Mix well and pour into prepared loaf tins.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from pans and cool on wire rack.

This will yield two loaves.

P.S. I just showed this post to my mom for her to see the pictures so I could see if the consistency was right and what does she say-”I’ve never used a mixer to make my bread.” Ahh lord.

P.P.S. I’m playing around with my photoshop so my pictures now will have some sort of element added to them.

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Tags: baking, christmas, cooking, lessons, recipe, sweetbread

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