By Keighley’s Mike Armstrong, an award-winning master baker with a big passion for baking. See facebook.com/bakermike001
COCONUT tartlets, or coconut jam tarts, were a big thing when I was growing up.
If you grew up in Yorkshire, you'd know and love these little coconut treats, which were sold in all our bakers' shops and made by mum from the Be-Ro books.
They may not look very special, but there's a little jam hidden inside that gives these coconut tarts a comforting and nostalgic bite – raspberry and coconut are two flavours that just work together perfectly.
Coconuts were a British childhood exotic treat. Every summer after our town's long gala procession had worked its way through the streets, we would all descend on the funfair at Victoria Park. My dad would always make his way to the coconut shy (or shie), to throw a few wooden balls at poles to knock off a coconut. If you were able to knock one off its stand you got to keep the coconut – which never seemed to happen!
The game derives from the Aunt Sally dating from the late 1800s. Back then, coconut was a rarity, but seriously, win a coconut? I'm picturing some hard-bitten factory/mill worker down to his last penny muttering ''here goes nothing'' and then wildly rejoicing at his precious coconut prize. We never won one I may add, but bought one on the way out – give that man a coconut, everyone's a winner, mum would say, singing on our way home that old British song I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts.
Coconuts were indeed a rarity and it also took some ingenuity for people to get the flesh. My dad used to drill a couple of holes to drain off the milk, and then took a hacksaw to halve the shell – or if impatient, a hammer! My nana told me that when she was a child someone got a banana and the whole street gathered round to gawp – it's funny how we take our food today for granted and still gawp at the price.
Coconut is a wild and crazy fruit, it's a world traveller. It is named from the Portuguese sailors who called it coco, meaning ''grinning look'', because they thought the three holes in its shell looked like a spooky face. Half coconut shells can be struck together to imitate the sound of hoof beats – that's me trotting off now for another week!
RECIPE
RICH COCONUT TARTLETS
Ingredients:
100g (4oz) shortcrust pastry
50g (2oz) butter or margarine, softened
50g (2oz) caster sugar
50g (2oz) desiccated coconut
1 egg, beaten
Raspberry or strawberry jam
Method:
1. Roll out the pastry thinly using a little flour and then line 12 bun tins.
2. Place a little jam in each pastry case.
3. Cream together the butter and sugar, stir in the beaten egg and coconut and mix well.
4. Divide the mixture between the pastry cases.
5. Bake in a preheated oven 180C, 160C fan, Gas Mark 4 for around 20 minutes till golden brown in colour.
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