Last day before going on holiday

I've been unbelievably busy over the past couple of weeks. I keep saying that, as an excuse of not blogging anything and this time I'm 3 dishes behind and counting.

But since last Wednesday I'm on holiday for two weeks. My Sister Bip has come to visit and I've been spending time with her.

However, I thought I'd bake something as a good-bye thing to my colleagues and went for the popular Swedish "kokostoppar", which translates to coconut tops. There is a plethora of recipes, I decided on this one. And here is what they looked like straight out of the oven:



These were offered at my school in the café/playroom and were a favourite of mine. They are very simple and are also very good for wheat intolerant people, as there's none of that in them.

Ingredients

50 g unsalted butter
2 eggs
1.5 dl caster sugar
200 g dessicated coconut
grated zest of 2 lemons
1 tbsp dark rum

Method

1. Melt the butter and let cool down.


2. In the mean time, whisk the eggs and sugar until white and fluffy.


3. Carefully stir in the coconut, butter, lemon zest and rum.


4. Leave to stand for 30 minutes in room temperature. The mixture should expand further still here.


5. Pre-heat the oven at gas mark 4 (175 degrees C).


6. Line a couple of baking sheets with baking paper and with the help of a couple of spoons or just with your fingers, form small pyramids (about the size of a walnut) and place on the baking sheets.


7. Bake at the bottom of the oven for 15-30 minutes.


8. Leave to cool completely. The coconut tops can be frozen.

I made a double dose on Monday night, I didn't have any lemons, so skipped the zest, I used medium eggs and I whisk in the coconut, butter and rum. Thus the mixture was stiffer than expected and it didn't expand during its resting. I started out fiddling beautiful shapes with two spoons and realised that I'd be stuck doing that all night and moved on to rolling the mixture with my fingers. I ended up baking them for 30 minutes and I increased the heat at the end to get the tips a bit browner, but in hindsight, I definitely over-cooked them, they need to be gooey in the middle and mine weren't.

From a double dose I got 42 tops. Lundulph and I had one each on the night and I left another one for him the next day, the rest came along with me to work and didn't last very long, so despite the mishaps, they worked ever so well. My boss thought they were like macaroons, but a quick shufty at the google, indicates that the coconut macaroons have flour and sometimes milk or cream. Lundulph was a bit upset that there weren't any left to take back home again. I was very happy that for once I could also cater for a colleague that can' eat any wheat products.

Some people recommend that the tips be dipped in melted dark chocolate, but I personally thing this is not necessary at all.