Friday, March 13, 2009

Tyler Florence Fridays: Coconut Bread with Pineapple Butter

Last week, I came across “Tyler Florence Fridays,” a blog set up by Deb of Kahakai Kitchen, Megan of My Baking Adventures, and Natashya of Living in the Kitchen with Puppies, to bring together foodies who love Tyler Florence and love his equally tasty food. Every week, TFF participants cook up (or bake up) one of Tyler’s recipes from either his cookbooks or online recipes from one of his Food Network shows. TFF then posts, every Friday (as per the name!), a round-up of everyone’s dishes for the week. Just a way for us to sample Tyler’s recipes without having to try every single one of them and to find ones that we want to try and make ourselves!

I have a number of Tyler’s cookbooks and thought that TFF was the perfect opportunity and reason for me to break them out. So for my first week in “Tyler Florence Fridays,” I decided to go with something from one of my favorite meals – brunch! And so I tried Tyler's Coconut Bread with Sweet Pineapple Butter.

I love to bake and in this recipe, Tyler references trips to Sydney, Australia, one of my favorite places in the world. In particular, he talks about a breakfast place in Darlinghurst called bills. Bill Granger is the chef at bills and he is a chef that I’ve always wanted to sample his food – when in Australia, I often found myself in the cookbook section of the bookstore, paging through one of Bill’s cookbooks… In any case, bills serves up a coconut bread similar to the one here in Tyler’s cookbook, so I decided I had to try it. (Plus, Mr. J nearly salivated on the book when he heard about it).

So here it is, from Tyler’s “Real Kitchen” cookbook: Coconut Bread with Sweet Pineapple Butter.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for greasing pan
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 1 lemon, finely grated
1 1/2 cups of unsweetened coconut milk
1 1/2 cups shredded coconut, toasted

What to do:

Preheat the oven to 275. Grease bottom and sides of a 9x5 inch loaf pan with butter. In a large bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In another large bowl, whisk together melted butter with the brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest. Pour in the coconut milk and whisk together. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold everything together with a spatula until you have a smooth batter. Gently fold in the shredded coconut until evenly distributed. Pour into the prepared loaf pan and set it on a cookie sheet. Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes, or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the bread. Rotate the pan periodically to ensure even browning. Cool the bread in the pan for 20 minutes or so; then when cool enough to handle, remove the coconut bread to a cutting board and let it cool completely before slicing.

Thoughts/Results:

The coconut bread turned out nicely... It was admittedly a bit dry, a littel bit more dry than I would have preferred (I didn't get to make the actual pineapple butter that Tyler suggested as an accompaniment, although I think that would have given it a great flavor complement and make the bread less dry... I made a version of pineapple butter but it didn't set up very well!). But the flavors of the bread were great. The coconut is not overpowering -- more subtle hints of the coconut. The lemon zest actually comes across fairly strong, so next time, I would probably cut back a little on the lemon zest. I think that this would also be fabulous with chocolate chips (but really, almost anything is better with chocolate chips!) mixed into the batter.

The bread was a big hit with Mr. J. He brought some to work and although it crumbled quite a bit before he made it to work, he devoured it. The bread keeps well for at least a week (we took Tyler's suggestion and wrapped it up tightly and placed it in a plastic bag).

Cheers! Thanks to TFF for having me as part of this group! (I actually made a second Tyler Florence dish this past week, but will wait to post til next week :))

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, pineapple butter sounds fantastic! And perfect with that delicious coconut bread!

Michelle said...

Adding the pineapple in the batter would have added quite a bit of moisture to the bread. I've made a Pineapple cornbread and it was very moist!

To make pineapple butter just try using the pineapple juice.

Jackie said...

Thanks 5 Star Foodie for your comment! :)

That's a great idea Michelle about adding the pineapple to the batter -- not only would it become more moist, but I think it would also be quite delicious (the flavor combo).

NKP said...

This has been a popular choice, I have heard great things about it.
I think you would have liked the pineapple butter - it was Deb's favourite part!
Welcome to Tyler Florence Fridays!

Donna-FFW said...

This is on my list to try. It sounds so tropical and fantastic!! Coconut bread, pineapple butter..MMMM

Jackie said...

Thanks Natashya! I'm excited to embark on more of Tyler's recipes thru TFF... I'm not surprised that the coconut bread was a popular choice... I mean, how can you resist coconut bread (and he just makes it sound so delicious....)!

Megan said...

Hey! Welcome to our little group - so glad you decided to come along!

You have a great blog, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else you cook up!

Mrs M. said...

Did you use plain unsweetened coconut or the sweetened kind from the baking isle? I would like to mke this but I only have the unsweetened variety.

Jackie said...

I used sweetened coconut from the baking aisle (I'm a sucker for the stuff... I could eat it by itself!). The bread itself wasn't overly sweet even with the sweetened coconut, so I think it depends on how sweet you prefer the bread to be -- you could add some sweetness (and moisture) by maybe using pineapple like Michelle suggested.

Let me know how it works out!

Jenny said...

Welcome to the group!

Reeni said...

I have been wanting to try this one!
It has such wonderful flavors. I add a bit of sour cream to my breads sometime, it seems to help with the moistness.

Anonymous said...

the pineapple butter for this one is definitely where it was at, it was by far my favorite component of the recipe. welcome to the group!

Deb in Hawaii said...

Welcome to TFF! it's so nice to hve you. I really liked this recipe when I made it. Like Karen, the pineapple butter was my favorite part!

Aloha,

Deb

Tangled Noodle said...

That is a fine looking bread! I love the suggestion for using pineapple in the batter but you've done a marvelous job even if it wasn't as moist as you'd expected. Feel free to send any such baking disappointments my way!

Anonymous said...

Loving your pics! This bread sounds amazing. And the butter...wow!

Anonymous said...

Pineapple, coconut and chocolate. YUM. Chocolate would be a great addition. But this does look great alone.