I recently got my summer edition of BBC’s good food magazine and as the weather has been pretty rubbish up here in Scotland this summer, it certainly brightened my day up as is was pushed through the letterbox.
My subscription comes courtesy of magazine.co.uk who kindly gave me the subscription in return for me writing some posts about the magazines I get. I love my food magazines and spend ages pouring through them. I also like adapting recipes from them!
In the good food magazine I saw a recipe for chocolate and coconut bars which did look delicious, but I had ideas… I had bought some lavender sugar the week before and I was dying to try it, so I decided to swap half the caster sugar in the recipe for that. Then I decided to add, instead of dried berries, some dried lemon peel I had in the cupboard. You could substitute any lemony jelly type sweet also, if you cut it into little bits here. Lemon and lavender are a great flavor combination.
Lastly instead of milk chocolate I went for white chocolate to sweeten things up more. The bars are made from egg whites, desiccated coconut and some other bits. The bars are very crumbly when baked and cut up, but that adds to the rustic nature.
The coconut texture is quite macaroon like (not to be mistaken with macaron!) and the flavours of lemon and lavender really brighten these little bars up.
If you would like to make lavender sugar, simply add some sprigs of dried lavender into a jar of sugar, like you would for vanilla sugar. The longer you leave the sugar, the more permeated it becomes with the lavender flavour!
Thanks again to magazine.co.uk for the subscription. If you would like to receive your magazines through the door, or gift a subscription to someone (it really is the gift that keeps on giving!) follow the link to magazine.co.uk.
Here’s how I made the bars…
Lemon Lavender Coconut Bars
Coconut bars flavoured with lemon and lavender and topped
with white chocolate
Inspired by BBC good food
Cuisine: Dessert Category: Bars Yields: 16 bars approx.
Prep Time: 10 Mins Cook Time: 25 Mins Total Time: 35 Mins
Ingredients
- 50 grams lavender sugar
- 50 grams caster sugar
- 2 tablespoons golden syrup
- 2 egg whites
- 160 gram can of coconut cream
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 250 grams desiccated coconut (unsweetened)
- 50 grams dried lemon peel or lemon jelly sweets chopped
- 150 grams white chocolate melted
- Line a 9”x9” square tin with greaseproof paper and preheat the oven to 180C.
- In the bowl of a mixer add the sugars, egg whites, syrup, coconut cream, vanilla and beat together until incorporated. Add the desiccated coconut and lemon peel and with a spatula fold these in to the wet mix until it is fully combined.
- Place the mix into the baking tin and flatten with an off-set spatula or similar so it is flat and even on top. Bake in the oven for approximately 25 minutes, or until it has turned golden brown on top and is firm to press.
- Allow to cool fully in the tin then gently remove and place onto a chopping board, peeling the greaseproof paper from underneath.
- Melt the white chocolate, either over a bain marie, or in the microwave and pour over the square of coconut bars. Allow to set fully – 2 to 3 hours.
- Cut into bars with a sharp knife, cleaning the knife off after every slice.
- Enjoy!
