Authentic Trini Coconut Sweetbread

Grate the coconut. By far this is the hardest step in making a coconut sweet bread. An authentic sweet bread must have freshly grated coconut. Typically a whole coconut will give me almost 3 cups of grated coconut. Be careful with your knuckles in this step as you grate the coconut, I have grated my knuckles a few times. I typically buy 2 coconuts to ensure that at least 1 is good. Some local international or Caribbean stores will break the coconut open for you in the store so you can ensure you are buying a good coconut. A good coconut will have flesh that is WHITE and firm. If the flesh nearest the hist is mushy at all, do not use that coconut. Also, your coconut MUST have water inside of it. A dry coconut is BAD. Use a hammer to crack open the coconut. Once you have the coconut cracked open a butter knife is the best tool for prying the flesh away from the husk. The flesh of coconuts spoils quickly so after you crack it open do not leave it out on the counter for more than 60-90 minutes.

Sift together flour and baking powder in a large bowl. Coconut Sweetbread is a heavy bread. sifting your flour will help with the density of your final product.

In a separate bowl cream the butter and sugar. Creaming butter is the process of combining softened butter and sugar using a fork or the back of a spoon. Growing up I used to cream butter and sugar and just eat it when I was being too lazy to make cookies.

Add Fruit and Spice Mix to the creamed butter and sugar: 1. Coconut 2. Raisins 3. Cherries 4. Mixed peel 5. All Spice 6. Cinnamon 7. Nutmeg Mix thoroughly

In a Third bowl combine the wet ingredients: 1. Egg 2. Milk 3. Vanilla Extract

Add the Wet Ingredients to the Fruit and Spice mix and combine.

1/4 cup at a time add and mix the flour into the Wet Ingredient and Fruit Mix. This will seem like a bad idea. You will feel that there is not enough liquid. I feel this way EVERYTIME I make this recipe. Just keep adding the flour and mixing it all together. Sweetbread is a dense bread.

Grease two 9x5 inch baking pans

Divide the dough "evenly" between the two pans

Using the back of a spoon press the dough into an even thickness covering the base of the pan

Bake at 325 degrees F for 60 min The bread is baked when a toothpick returns clean after sticking the middle of the bread. If your toothpick does not return clean, bake the bread for an additional 5 minutes and check again. Continue adding 5 minutes until the toothpick returns clean. NOTE: use a new toothpick each time you stick the bread

TURN OFF THE OVEN

Combine 3 tbs of sugar and 1 1/2 tbs of water. The sugar will not fully dissolve (we dont want it to).

Once your bread is fully cooked generously baste it with the sugar water and return it to the oven for 5 minutes. The oven should be hot from baking but not turned on.