Chocolate coconut slice and decadence

This slice is not for the faint of heart. It’s not hard to make, despite being split into three parts – the making it is the easy part… the problem is that this slice is decadent and delicious and pretty addictive too. So when you find yourself slicing of a little slither before breakfast, don’t act like I didn’t warn you!

If chocolate was at all appropriate to give to dogs, Norman could have used some of this slice yesterday. It was super windy here and he was scared. He moped around the house for so long that I had to force him to go outside and be adventurous for ten minutes. He mostly just hid behind shrubs, trees, flowers – whatever he thought might shield him from the wind. He was not a happy pup!
One of my brothers cut himself a rather substantial square of this slice and was heard to remark “Pray. For. Mojo.” For those of you who didn’t grow up on a steady diet of The Simpsons, I recommend that you Google this, you’ll appreciate it.

It’s not all bad for you though – it only has one egg in it (which could easily be substituted for something else, in which it would be egg free) and it has lots of coconut in it. That makes it healthy, right?

Coconuts are good! And so is this slice. Try it, you won’t regret it. The coconut and the condensed milk partner perfectly, resulting in a delightfully light and flavoursome filling. This filling is also made better by the fact that it’s sandwiched between two different types of chocolate!

Gorgeous chocolate coconut slice

Base:

• 80g dark chocolate
• 80g butter
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 cup flour
• 2 tbsp cocoa

Filling:

• 2 cups shredded coconut
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 395g tin sweetened condensed milk
• 2 tbsp cornflour
• 4 tbsp water

Chocolate topping:

• 200g chocolate
• 60g butter

Preheat your oven to 180C and line a tin loaf with baking paper.

Pop your chocolate into a bowl and microwave it to melt partially. Add your butter to the melted chocolate and return it to the microwave briefly to melt them both. Mix the two together and pour into a mixing bowl. Add in the sugar and egg and mix to combine.

Throw your flour and cocoa and mix well. By now your mixture should be shiny and cohesive. Scoop your mixture into the prepared loaf tin and squash it down so that it’s nice and level.

Pop it into the oven for 20 minutes.

While your base is in the oven, mix your coconut and sweetened condensed milk together. This doesn’t take much, just put them in a bowl together and give them a quick stir with a wooden spoon. In a separate bowl, mix the cornflour and water together until it’s smooth and there are no lumps. Pour this into the coconut mixture and stir again.

You don’t need to use two types of coconut, but I find that the shredded coconut gives the filling a great texture, while the desiccated jumps into any air pockets and makes it nice and cohesive. If you only use one type of coconut, remember that one cup of desiccated coconut (approx. 70g) does not weight the same as one cup od shredded (approx. 80g), so substitute carefully.

The cornflour is an egg substitute. I used to make this recipe with two eggs to hold the coconut part together, but I only had one egg the last time that I made this recipe, so I tried the cornflour instead…and loved it! So the recipe you’re reading is version 2.0 of this recipe – very much improved, if you ask me.

When the base is done in the oven, allow it to cool for five minutes and then spread the coconut mixture over it. Smooth it out as much as possible and return it to the oven for another 2025 minutes, until the edges have started to brown.

Take the slice out of the oven and allow to cool for ten more minutes before adding the final layer.

To complete the slice, melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave, stir to mix completely and then pour over the coconut layer. Smooth it out with a palette knife – I like to leave it with a few uneven lines in it, I like the home made touch that it gives.

Pop in the fridge for at least half an hour and slice into small squares to serve. Enjoy!