Apricot And Coconut Squares

Apricot and Coconut Squares. I did not plan on making this.  I wanted to make something else which I had planned to bake for the last couple of days.  Took out my flour, sugar, etc.. and,  my recipe book, "Brownies and Bars", which happens to be my favourite, at the moment. But somehow, I found myself turned to another page, and that's it, I'm making this now!  So another unexpected recipe came to see the light of day, and the other one being shoved away until later!  Has this happened to you before?  Well, this is not the first time for me! 

This is a sweet delightful treat. The addition of desiccated coconut gives it a soft chewy texture.  Of course there is the delicious tanginess from the apricots and the walnuts gave an added slight crunch. As usual, the sugar is reduced, which turned out perfect.  

I'm linking this recipe to Recipe Swap Thursday #5 at Prairie Story. Check out other yummies at Prairie Story and link yours too!

Apricot and Coconut Squares

(adapted from "brownies & bars" by Liz Franklin)

Makes 15

Preparation time : 45 minutes

You will need a lightly buttered deep roasting tin or cake tin measuring 20x30 cm/8x12 inches

Base

100 gm/3-1/2 oz self-raising flour

100 gm/3-1/2 oz desiccated coconut

100 gm/3-1/2 oz caster sugar (I use 80gm)

100 gm/3-1/2 oz butter, melted

Topping

200 gm/7 oz dried apricots, chopped

150 gm/5 oz caster sugar (I use 110gm)

50 gm/1-3/4 oz desiccated coconut

100 gm/3-1/2 oz walnuts, roughly chopped

2 eggs, beaten

50 gm/1-3/4 oz dark chocolate, melted

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F/gas mark 4.  To make the base, sift the flour into a bowl and add the coconut and caster sugar.  Stir in the melted butter and spoon the mixture into the prepared tin.

To make the topping, mix the apricots, sugar, coconut and walnuts together in a large bowl and stir in the eggs.  Spread over the base and then bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden and springy.  Leave to cool.

Drizzle the cold cake with the melted chocolate to decorate and then cut into squares or bars.  Store them in an airtight container.

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Ever seen this flower?  Can you name the plant of this flower?

Award!

Rebecka of "At Home With Rebecka" has graciously extended "One Lovely Blog Award" to me of which I have accepted with honour.  Thank you, Rebecka! It is nice to know you even when we are thousands of miles away!

In accepting this award, there are some rules that comes together, which I am more than happy to follow. Here are the rules :

1. Accept the award. Post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.

2. Pay it forward to 15 other bloggers that you have newly discovered.

3. Contact those blog owners and let them know they've been chosen.


They are all lovely blogs and  it is not easy to pick out 15 since all of them are lovely!  So here goes, in no particular order :

1. Priya's Easy N Tasty Recipes
2. alison's trials
3. Brenda's Canadian Kitchen
4. les reves d'une boulangere
5. Buttercream Barbie
6. One Perfect Bite
7. Mandy's Recipe Box
8. kitchen stories
9. mangiabella
10. mimosa cafe
11. Miz Helen's Country Cottage
12. Foodalution
13. Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice
14. in cucina per caso
15. Baking and Creating with Avril

Each and every one of them are lovely in their own special way. Please do visit them to see their lovely blog and make a new friend along the way, after all, without our blogger friends constant encouraging words and support, we might as well give up blogging!

Special announcement : Please join in, the more the merrier!
There is a  "Culinary Smackdown Battle Chile October 2010" at "At Home With Rebecka". Go on, get some hot stuff smoking and head on down to Rebecka's.  Please do drop by her wonderful blog for more info.  Have fun!

Two Tone Bread

It has been awhile since I last baked a bread.  And this bread turns out a little "too-green"! The texture is really soft. When I cut the first slice, I can feel the softness of the bread, but when I saw the colour, OMG! why is it so green!  The same reaction with my hubby, when I gave him a slice!  The kids think that the green is really nice!  Besides that, the bread turns out really well.

This is a recipe from Alex Goh's, "Magic Bread".  His instructions are all very brief, which might be confusing for someone who is totally new at baking and I notice that most of the baking pan recommended are not suitable.  For this bread, he states that the size of  17x9x7cm pan should be used and this will yield 4 loaves of bread!  Looking at the amount of the dough, I am not confident that this will make 4 loaves of bread, even though the pans recommended are small, besides, I do not have such size pans.  I decided to make this into two loaves by using 21x11x6cm pans, and I'm glad I did.

Take note that the gelatinized dough needs to be prepared a day earlier.  This is fairly easy and simple.

This bread is great spread with butter, it still stays soft the next 2 days.  Does it stay soft on the fourth day?  No idea, we finished it all on the third day. Really good with a cup of hot coffee.

(Tip : Keep bread in airtight container and do not slice until needed, it will stay soft longer. Once sliced, it will dry out quicker)

I'm linking this to Cookbook Sunday at Brenda's Canadian Kitchen 

Two-Tone Bread

(adapted from "Magic Bread" by Alex Goh)

Ingredients A :

100gm bread flour

70gm boiling water (I use 80gm)

Ingredient B :

400gm bread flour

10gm milk powder

25gm coconut milk powder

75gm sugar

7gm salt

8gm instant yeast

Ingredient C :

170gm cold water

1 cold egg

Ingredient D :

80gm butter

Ingredient E :

some green colouring

Ingredient F :

50gm toasted chopped macadamia nuts

50gm raisins

Method :

1. Add the boiling water from A into flour, mix until well-blended to form dough.  Cover and set aside to cool.  Keep refrigerated for at least 12 hours.
2. Mix B until well-blended.  Add in C and knead to form rough dough.  Add in A and knead until well-blended.
3. Add in D and knead to form elastic dough.  Take 400gm of the dough and mix with E until well-blended.  Add in F and mix until well-combined.  The rest of the dough remains plain.
4. Let it proof for 40 minutes.  Divide the plain and green dough into 4 portions each and mould it round.
5. Let it rest for 10 minutes, then roll it flat.
6. Place a piece of flatten green dough on top of plain dough, roll it up like Swiss roll.
7. Place it into a greased 17x9x7cm loaf tin.  Make 4 loafs.  Let it proof for 50 minutes.
8. Bake at 180C for 30 minutes.

There will be a  "Culinary Smackdown Battle Chile October 2010" at "At Home With Rebecka". Go on, get some hot stuff smoking and head on down to Rebecka's.  Please do drop by her wonderful blog for more info.  Have fun!