I know, I skipped a week! I couldn’t deal with myself, people, I am sorry. Last week was very busy, and this week started along the same lines. So here I am, slightly late, but alive!
Last week was the Christmas Market at work, and I had to prepare something for the occasion. Problems, though, were arising. A hospital visit for a member of the family (nothing major, all is good now), the last class of the course, this and that, and there I am, on Tuesday (with a last chance to finish stuff up on Wednesday), having to prepare something for Friday (Thursday being Course day, I couldn’t do anything, really).
I had already decided to prepare some Baci di Dama (bad idea, since they are easy to make but they also take a hellishly long time). What to make next? It needed to be something quick and easy to transport, since I go to work by train. Nothing really fancy or too fragile then. I decided to prepare these easy peasy (or so I thought) Coconut Treats.
There, have a look at the ingredients:
Coconut Treats
Ingredients
200 g shredded coconut
200 g sugar
150 g (approx. 4) egg whites
What an easy recipe, you say. Indeed, it is. Now, you want to pay attention to some details, overlooked in the recipe from the Italian website I had taken it (Giallo Zafferano, the most relevant recipes page in Italy).
Also, being stressed out because I NEEDED this to work and I didn’t have enough time to take it easy probably didn’t help.
When you do it, be sure to be calm and collected! I can’t believe I am saying this after having survived croissant-making, but this little fellas made me very angry. And angry baking is never good baking, padawans.
So, what should we do with these 3 ingredients? We basically mix them. Now, the egg white goes just like that, no previous whipping, no nothing. So the issue here is mix it well with the sugar and the coconut.
Now, the site calls for the use of a piping bag, to create nice little perfect spirals like the ones you can find in the following pictures (thank you Giallo Zafferano).
I had a big issue with the piping bag, though, because the egg white had ended on one side of the bag and the rest was as dry as the Sahara in summer. No need to tell you how that ended. Yes, badly. I had to tear the bag open and try to stick the mixture together again, then shaping it with my very hands. The result was not nice.
So i ditched the first attempt (no, I did not throw it away, it was just discarded as something presentable at a Christmas market). The following day, I tried again. This time, I avoided the piping bag and, for the sake of being quicker, I used tiny little truffle cases. This attempt ended better than the first one, but still some of the treats were misshapen and blob-like. Now, they were delicious (first batch was delish too 🙂 ). I had bought some edible golden glitter and applied generously. Very, very generously. They weren’t the most refined treats, but they were nice and looked decent.
That, and the priceless help from Sergeant Lunch putting together and packing the Bacis, made the Market appearance a success.
Now, people and desperate housewives at the Market were taking the competition really seriously, check these pics out:
Christmas has officially started 🙂 🙂 🙂
Capitan Colazione 