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Delicious!
Story by Emma-Jane Richards, sharing her love for Coconut Fingers
When I think about Coconut Fingers I think of two things; weddings and My Nanny Lillian. Weddings because there were always coconut fingers served at weddings and after you ate your weight in pineapple and cheese on sticks and curry puffs, coconut fingers were the best thing ever at a wedding. They remind me of my Nanny because she would make dozens and dozens of them in her little kitchen to sell at the Half Tree Hollow Community Centre at Saturday night dances back in the day when everyone you knew went to dances were bands played the Boston and you got to have a good ole’ swing out.
How to make Coconut Fingers
Coconut Fingers
A delicious cake unique to St Helena. Learn how to make Coconut Fingers with this easy to follow recipe. Including video and images.
Servings 30 Fingers
Equipment
- Flat Cake Tray (Approx. 3-5cm high)
- Cooling Rack
Ingredients
- 283 g Plain Flour
- 225 g Granulated Sugar
- 225 g Butter or Margarine
- 4 Eggs
- Vanilla Essence
- 2 tsp Baking Powder
- 750 g Icing Sugar
- 1 kg Desiccated Coconut
- Pink or Red Food Colouring
Instructions
Making the Cake Base
- Cream the sugar and butter/margarine in a bowl until soft and light in colour.
- Mix in the eggs one at a time, and one tablespoon of sifted flour to the mixture.
- Add a few drops of the vanilla essence to the mixture. Mix well.
- Add the remaining sifted flour and the baking powder. Mix well.
- Line the baking tray with bakery parchment.
- Place mixture into a flat cake tin and bake in a moderate oven at 350F / 180c / Gas 4 for 18-20 minutes.
Making the Coconut Fingers
- Make sure that the cake is completely cooled from baking. Otherwise the icing will melt during decoration.
- Cut the cake into fingers about 7-10 cm long by 2-3 cm wide.
- Using a medium/large bowl, mix some of the icing sugar with water to make the icing mixture. Start with a few drops of water, adding more as you mix, until it has the consistency of Tomato sauce. (Note: Depending on the amount of cake fingers you have, it is best to make make a small amount of icing and make more as required).
- Add a few drops of the food colouring to the icing sugar mixture. Mix it well.
- Add some of the Coconut to a medium/large bowl.
- Using a fork or your fingers dip the fingers into the icing sugar bowl, making sure to cover all the sides of the cake with icing.
- Then roll the fingers in the coconut bowl.
- Leave to set on a plate.
- Once set, enjoy with a hot beverage, or a glass of milk. Perfect for any occasion really. Robin likes to eat as many as he can just by themselves. Whereas Emma-Jane likes hers with a nice hot cuppa.
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Image: James Bay, St Helena Island