These fabulous recipes come from my friend and guest blogger Kat. This coconut bread is so, so good and actually improves with age. We’ve been enjoying it for breakfast all week, note that the lime marmalade is the perfect partner, even for marmalade deniers (like me).

This recipe is adapted from the sunny Bill Granger’s Sydney Food – I can’t help but salivate and dream of an Australian brunch when I read it. This tropical bread is fantastic slathered with lime marmalade, or do as Bill does and serve with a salt fish relish, if you can lay your hands on any. The bread is best made earlier than you want to eat it – ideally the day before – as this makes it much easier to slice and toast. And toast it you must.

The lime marmalade is a really simple recipe, only three ingredients, but I’d advise that a fourth ingredient is a nice clear Sunday afternoon to potter around whilst the limes are bubbling away. It helps to have a nice sharp knife too to make the chopping as efficient as possible. Beware doubling the recipe (as I did!) as it’s a lot of limes to finely chop. The sugar thermometer helps, but is by no means necessary. I just love an excuse to buy some more kitchen related gadgetry.

Coconut bread

2 eggs
300ml milk
1tsp vanilla essence
375g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
250g caster sugar
150g dessicated coconut
75g butter, melted

Icing sugar and butter to serve

• Preheat the oven to 180C, and line a 21 x 10cm loaf tin.
• Sift the flour, baking powder and cinnamon together into a bowl, stir in the sugar and coconut until well mixed – you can use your hands for this step in you want.
• In a measuring jug, measure the milk and then add the eggs and vanilla essence, mixing well. Make a well in the centre of the dry mixture, and pour the egg mix in gradually, stirring to combine. Once the mixture has come together (Bill warns against over-mixing), pour in the melted butter a bit at a time and mix until smooth. Pour into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 1hr, and test with a skewer. You might find it needs a little longer until the middle is cooked through.
• Leave to cool, and then remove from the tin. Slice thickly and toast lightly, serving dusted with icing sugar and lots of butter.

Lime marmalade

700g limes
1.7l water
1.4kg granulated sugar

For this recipe, you’ll need a large pan with a lid. The pan needs to be weighed before any ingredients are added, so make sure you write the weight down somewhere sensible – it’s important later. Plus, you’ll either need a sugar thermometer (like this one), or to pop a few plates in the fridge to chill down to allow you to test the marmalade’s set. Makes 5 small jars.

• Wash the limes, and chop off the stalk end. Put the limes into your pan, and add the water. Bring to the boil, and then simmer with the lid on for two hours.
• The limes will be bobbing on the surface during this time, and by the end of the cooking time will be tender, some might have even collapsed a little – if you need to, squish one gently against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon to test.
• Reserving the liquid for later, remove the limes from the pan with a slotted spoon and allow to cool. You can do this overnight, just leave the limes covered, and cover the pan of cooking liquid.
• Chop the limes very finely, retaining any pulp and juice but throwing any pips away. Return the lime slices to the pan, and weigh your pan again – if needed, boil down so the contents weigh about 1-1.2kg.
• Add the sugar, stir to dissolve, and bring to the boil. Allow the mixture to bubble until a sugar thermometer reads 105C (or drop a small amount of the marmalade onto one of the chilled plate, and push your finger across the surface – it’ll wrinkle when the correct set is reached).
• Allow the mixture to cool for 15 minutes (this prevents the lime from rising to the top of the marmalade in the jars). Meantime prepare your jars – heat the oven to just warm (50DegC), and pop in your clean jars (without lids) on an oven tray.

Tags: coconut, lime, marmalade

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