This tea bread, the kind favoured in the Caribbean, is fairly compact with a simple, clean coconut taste, especially if you use fresh or frozen coconut (the latter will need to be brought to room temperature). It can be eaten as it is, or with butter. Simple and quick to make, it keeps well for a few days but is at its lightest on the day of baking.
200 g/7 oz/1⅓ cups plain (all-purpose) flour
1¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
2 eggs
125 g/4½ oz/generous ½ cup caster (superfine) sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
150 g/5½ oz finely grated coconut, fresh or frozen or 90 g/3¼ oz/1 cup fine desiccated (dry, unsweetened) coconut mixed with 4 tbsp warm water
100 g/3½ oz/⅞ stick butter, melted
If using desiccated coconut, mix it with the water and leave to stand until needed. If using frozen coconut, allow it to come to room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 160˚C/325˚F/Gas Mark 3. Grease the loaf tin, then dust with flour.
Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt and set aside.
Whisk the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract until thick and lightened in colour. Add the flour mixture, coconut and melted butter and mix well.
Bake for 45–50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the loaf comes out clean. Don’t over-bake. Cool on a wire rack.
Serve in slices.
This cake is a little richer and lighter in texture than the Coconut Tea Bread (opposite) and makes a good dessert served with fruit and whipped cream or crème fraîche. Quick and easy to make, the cake will stay moist for a few days but is at its best a few hours after baking.
225 g/8 oz/1½ cups plain (all-purpose) flour
2¼ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
225 g/8 oz/2 sticks butter, softened
225 g/8 oz/generous 1 cup caster (superfine) sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten with
1 tsp vanilla extract
225 g/8 oz finely grated coconut, fresh or frozen or 135 g/4¾ oz/1½ cups fine desiccated (dry, unsweetened) coconut mixed with 90 ml/3 fl oz/⅓ cup warm water
20-cm/8-in square tin
If using desiccated coconut, mix it with the water and leave to stand until needed. If using frozen coconut, allow it to come to room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 160˚C/325˚F/Gas Mark 3. Grease the tin, then dust with flour.
Sift the flour with the baking powder and salt, and set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar until creamy and lightened in colour. Lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla extract and then add to the mixture, a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Gently fold in the flour in three batches, then fold in the coconut and mix it just enough to distribute the coconut throughout the cake batter.
Bake in the oven for 35–40 minutes, or until the cake is light golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
Pictured on p. 189.
If you are one of those people who likes to taste a bit of this and a pinch of that while cooking, try to restrain yourself with the cassava. You are unlikely to eat a lethal quantity, but even small amounts of the prussic acid formed when the tubers are cut and exposed to air might cause stomach upsets. However, prussic acid is soluble in water and dissipates when heated, so cassava is completely harmless once cooked. Cassava (Manihot esculenta), also known as manioc and yucca, is native to Central and South America and has been used since time immemorial by the indigenous peoples of the region. One of the most delicious products of cassava is cassareep, a dark and thick sauce, similar to soy sauce, which is used to flavour succulent stews like Pepper Pot, in which meat is cooked slowly with cassareep, sweet spices and a generous amount of fresh chillies.
A primitive form of flatbread is still a staple of many Amerindian tribes in Guyana. Indeed, one of the most popular picture postcards, which has been available for as long as anybody can remember, shows thin discs of cassava meal being sun-dried on the thatched roofs of huts in an unnamed place in The Interior, as the vast hinterland is referred to by locals. More hygienic and less picturesque methods are no doubt used today, but these cards have led many a foreign recipient to shake their heads in wonder. The bread is rather an acquired taste and is sold to only a limited extent elsewhere in the country. It is unleavened and quite hard, and many people like it toasted and spread with butter, neatly combining heritage with colonial veneer in a single solid mouthful.
The tubers are used in a variety of savoury dishes, mostly stews and soups. They are also boiled and seasoned much as potatoes are in the West, and eaten as an accompaniment to meat or fish. One of the simplest and tastiest ways to prepare cassava is to sauté chunks of boiled cassava with flakes of salted cod, some onion and chillies to taste. Though the repertoire is fairly limited, cassava makes excellent sweet dishes too, such as the following recipe.
This fairly substantial but delicious pudding is a favourite snack in the Caribbean region as well as in Surinam, where it is known as ‘bojo’ (pronounced ‘bo-yo’). Similar puddings are made in many Asian countries. My Filipino friends like to give it a slightly looser texture by adding shredded gelatinous young coconut instead of using only the firm flesh of older coconuts. They also line the baking dish with banana leaf for an added flavour dimension.
Cassava Pone is whipped up in next to no time and both cassava and coconut are available frozen and ready-grated from ethnic supermarkets. I have added a few eggs to lighten the mixture, but this is generally omitted in the Caribbean, where people prefer a closer, stickier pone with a hint of black pepper.
This is extremely simple and quick once the grated cassava and coconut are at room temperature.
400 g/14 oz finely grated cassava, fresh or frozen
250 g/9 oz finely grated coconut, fresh or frozen
100 g/3½ oz/⅞ stick butter, melted
2 eggs, well beaten
a generous pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
150 g/5½ oz/¾ cup sugar
a pinch of finely ground black pepper
a shallow ovenproof dish, with a capacity of about 1250 ml/2 pints/5 cups
If frozen, allow the cassava and coconut to come to room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4. Grease the ovenproof dish.
Mix all of the ingredients together until homogenous and then transfer to the ovenproof dish. Level the surface and bake for about 35–40 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and the mixture has set. Serve lukewarm or at room temperature, cutting squares directly from the dish.
The word ‘pone’ is derived from the Algonquin/Delaware Indian appone and apan, meaning baked. When Americans speak of corn pone, they generally mean a cornmeal quick-bread made with lard, milk, baking powder and perhaps an egg or two, and then baked in a tin in the oven or dropped in spoonfuls onto a skillet. In the Caribbean, corn pones are denser and often use a little coconut as well.
In Guyana, Corn Pone is instantly transformed into Fat Top by means of the optional topping, and its name will no doubt do very little to endear it to the uninitiated. Please don’t let it put you off; people from my part of the world use salient physical characteristics liberally in their descriptions and often with brutal honesty. I know people called Lil Gal, Fat Boy, Hopalong, Finey (‘fine’ means thin) – and even Gold Boy, a name probably given by doting parents. Fat Top is a very homely dish, which combines a cornmeal base with a baked-on topping of coconut milk – the ‘fat’ top. It can be made under the most primitive conditions: in the past, when earthen fireplaces, or chulhas, were a common means of cooking in the countryside, the mixture used to be poured into large oval sardine cans and placed directly over the embers. They were covered with whatever sheet metal was to hand, usually an offcut of galvanized roofing material, and coals were heaped onto the metal sheet. The cooking holes of the chulha were then covered to improvise an oven-like situation. Later, when metal box ovens became more widespread, they were baked in these contraptions, which were perched over the fireplace. Obviously, temperature regulation was next to impossible, so it was all a very hit-or-miss kind of affair. Modern ovens offer greater precision, but Fat Top remains the comfort food it has always been.
Note that purists, among them my sister Goutami, will never use a raising agent as I have done here. She and I have an ongoing debate about how to make proper Cassava Pone and Fat Top. Normally, she defers to me in baking matters, but in this case she stubbornly insists that her way – the authentic way – is better. As she waxes lyrical about the texture of the unleavened, un-egged corn and cassava pones so beloved by Guyanese, adjectives like ‘dry’, ‘gummy’, ‘rubbery’, ‘substantial’ and even ‘leaden’ flit around my mind. I will concede that she has a point about the topping: the coconut milk topping will form a neat layer on top of an unleavened mixture and give a nice effect, but my way makes a moister and lighter Fat Top. To be truthful, I’ve never been a fan of the heavier, crumbly Corn Pone. However, if you would like to try it, the recipe gives instructions for both.
Pones and Fat Top are usually eaten as a snack, but warm Fat Top also makes an excellent pudding, especially in the colder months. The recipe is easily halved for smaller households and should be baked in a correspondingly smaller dish.
This is easy and fairly quick once the grated coconut is at room temperature.
175 g/6 oz/1 cup fine cornmeal
150 g/5½ oz/¾ cup granulated sugar
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly grated nutmeg
150 g/5¼ oz grated coconut, fresh or frozen
100 g/3½ oz/⅞ stick butter, melted
1¼ tsp baking powder*
150 ml/5 fl oz/⅔ cup dairy or coconut milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
400 ml/14 fl oz/1¾ cups coconut milk
75 g/2¾ oz/generous ⅓ cup granulated sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract
a shallow ovenproof dish, with a capacity of about 1250 ml/2 pints/5 cups
If using frozen coconut, allow it to come to room temperature.
Mix the cornmeal, sugar, salt, nutmeg, coconut and melted butter together in a bowl and leave to stand for about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180˚C/350˚F/Gas Mark 4. Grease the ovenproof dish.
Add the baking powder, milk and vanilla extract and beat well. Don’t worry if a little milk seeps out at this point.
Transfer to the ovenproof dish and level the top.
For Corn Pone, bake for 35–40 minutes, or until golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre of the pone comes out clean. Remove from the oven and leave it in the dish.
Eat warm or cold on the day of making. This has a crumbly, crunchy texture.
For the Fat Top, bake the mixture as described above for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, whisk the coconut milk, sugar and vanilla extract together until the sugar has dissolved. After 20 minutes, pour carefully over the top of the pone and continue baking for a further 25–30 minutes, or until a golden-brown skin forms over the top. Remove from the oven and leave it in the dish. The topping will have penetrated the pone and it will be moist and creamy.
Eat warm or cold on the day of making, and if you have leftovers, heat them up in the microwave for a few seconds to improve the texture.
* The baking powder may be omitted for a more dense version, in which the topping will remain on top and not penetrate the cake, as it does in my version.
