Sunday 6 December 2009

raspberry coconut slice

Slowly and steadily, I'm cooking my way through 'In the Kitchen'. Recipe #17 was the raspberry coconut slice which I made whilst waiting for the raspberry friands to cook (last post). I was actually quite looking forward to this one (it was one of the recipes that got bookmarked when I first went through the book) but somehow took 16 other recipes to get to. Well, I can finally cross this one off the list. It wasn't a huge success as I hoped it to be but I did learn a thing or two.

The recipe called for raspberries, I used frozen raspberries. In most cases, this is fine but not for this slice. Once baked, the combination of melting water and bubbly jam make for a watery/soggy mess. Best to use fresh raspberries.
So the recipe asked for a lamington pan. I thought I'd chosen a big enough pan but alas, it was not the case. Yes the pan I had was just big enough to hold the recipe, but it was definitely not a lamington pan. The confusing thing is that after making the mistake, I googled to see what a lamington pan was and a couple of forums were commenting how there's no standard size. If anything, this so called 'lamington pan' had to be at least 30x20cm for the slice to have turned out ok.
Baked the slice for it's alotted time slot - 40 minutes.
Here's the watery/soggy mess I was talking about.
Here's evidence showing that I used the wrong pan. What I baked was more of a cake than a slice. Way too thick and the texture of the whole thing was more like a sponge cake.
If anything, I guess this post reiterates how small compromises when baking can lead to drastic consequences. I'll probably revisit this one at some point, probably even buy myself a lamington tin for X'mas and hopefully I have better luck next time. Oh well!

3 comments:

Rita (mademoiselle délicieuse) said...

Haven't tried this myself, but I've read you can substitute frozen berries for fresh as long as they're defrosted first. Would you like to be our mutual guinea-pig and give it a try? =p

Forager said...

Yum! I love anything with raspberries and this looks so good with the mountain of red raspberries on top.

panda said...

mademoiselle delicieuse - i did think of it afterwards, at least when you defrost them, none of the water would seap out to make the cake soggy but alas, i couldn't remember whilst I was assembling it to get into the oven! will do next time.

forager - that pic of it with all the rapsberries does look pretty good :) will just need to improve on the construction of it the next time i make it and hopefully get myself a lamington tin :)