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Serves: 10
Prep time: 35 mins
Total time:
Recipe photograph by Ant Duncan
Recipe by Nadine Brown
Despite the name, this isn’t actually a bread. And its dense, crumbly texture isn’t quite a cake either. It’s moist with fresh coconut and dried fruits, fragrant with spices and incredibly moreish, explaining why it’s such a popular bake in Barbados.
Serves: 10
Prep time: 35 mins
Total time:
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Cakes Afternoon tea Fruity bakes Loaf cakes Caribbean
Nutritional information (per serving)
Calories
492Kcal
Fat
18gr
Saturates
13gr
Carbs
74gr
Sugars
35gr
Protein
6gr
Salt
0.8gr
Nadine Brown
When Nadine isn't busy developing delicious recipes and using her experience as a health food editor to create healthy treats, she's munching and reviewing her way around her beloved home town of Tottenham. Find out what she's cooking and eating on Instagram @n0sh.17
See more of Nadine Brown’s recipes
Nadine Brown
When Nadine isn't busy developing delicious recipes and using her experience as a health food editor to create healthy treats, she's munching and reviewing her way around her beloved home town of Tottenham. Find out what she's cooking and eating on Instagram @n0sh.17
See more of Nadine Brown’s recipes
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Ingredients
- 3 x 80g packs prepared coconut (or prepare from a whole coconut)
- 40g light brown sugar
- 1½ tsp ground mixed spice
- 350g plain flour
- 2½ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ½ tsp fine sea salt
- 225g caster sugar, plus 1 tbsp
- 100g glacé cherries, roughly chopped and rinsed, plus 5 left whole
- 50g raisins
- 50g cut mixed peel
- 100g butter, melted, plus extra to grease
- 75ml whole milk
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp almond extract
Step by step
- Grate the coconut to give you 200g – it’s easiest using a food processor to do this – you can discard (or eat) any chunks that won’t grate easily. Combine 50g of the grated coconut with the light brown sugar, ½ teaspoon of mixed spice and 1 tablespoon of water to make the filling. Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 160°C, fan 140°C, gas 3 and lightly grease and line a 900g loaf tin (10 x 20cm base measurement). Sift the flour, baking powder, nutmeg, remaining mixed spice and the salt into a large bowl. Stir in 225g caster sugar followed by the chopped cherries, raisins, mixed peel and remaining 150g grated coconut.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter, milk, egg and almond extract, then add to the dry ingredients. Stir together until you have a very stiff dough – this will be more like a biscuit dough then a bread or cake batter. Press half the dough into the tin then add the coconut filling down the centre, leaving a 5mm space at each end. Press the remaining dough on top, covering the filling completely, and top with the whole cherries, pressing them in lightly.
- Bake for about 1 hour 10 minutes or until the bread is deeply golden and a skewer comes out practically clean (a few dry crumbs are fine). Meanwhile, dissolve the extra caster sugar in 1 tablespoon of just-boiled water. Brush over the bread then return it to the oven for 5 minutes. Leave to cool in its tin, then turn out and slice to serve.
