Brazilian · Dessert
Quindim
- Intermediate
- 20 min
- roughly 2 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
Leads with richness that coats and comforts, a silken, spoon-slow texture.
Ingredients
- 12 egg yolks
- 250 g caster sugar
- 100 g fresh or frozen grated coconut
- 60 ml coconut milk
- 30 g unsalted butter, melted
- 1 g fine salt
- butter and sugar for the moulds
Equipment
Grater / zester
The skills inside
Skimming: foam, fat and a clear brothThe wobble & the skewer: testing a bake
Allergen screen
Found: dairy · egg
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Stir the yolks into the sugar with a spatula until the sugar has dissolved and the mix is smooth; do not whisk, and let no foam build on the surface.
- Stir in the melted butter, coconut milk, salt and grated coconut, then rest the mixture until the coconut has hydrated and any bubbles have risen so you can skim them off.
- Butter and sugar the moulds heavily, fill to 5 mm below the rim and stand them in a roasting tin; pour boiling water halfway up their sides.
- Bake at 160C (320F) until the surface is set and glossy amber and a skewer comes out clean while the centre still trembles, 35 to 45 minutes. 45 min
- Cool completely in the moulds, run a knife around each one and invert in a single movement.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Skimming: foam, fat and a clear broth 73 recipes
- It is held below a rolling boil for the whole time. Agitation drives fat and fine protein into the liquid as an emulsion, and nothing skimmed afterwards will take them back out.
- The grey foam that rises in the first minutes is lifted off and discarded rather than stirred back in.
- Fat is taken from the surface where it gathers, the pot moved off the centre of the heat if that is what it takes to collect it in one place.
- The liquid is visibly clearer at the end than it was at the start: it is possible to see down into it.
- Nothing lifted off goes back in. What was skimmed is discarded, not tipped back once the ladle is full.
Where it goes wrong The pot was allowed to boil, usually while something else was being attended to. Fat and protein emulsify into the liquid under agitation and cannot be lifted off afterwards, so the finished broth stays cloudy and greasy however patiently it is skimmed from then on.
The wobble & the skewer: testing a bake 135 recipes
- Tested at the true centre and the thickest point, not at the convenient edge: the edge is done long before the answer is.
- The skewer comes out as the recipe describes, clean and dry or carrying the stated moist crumb, and it does the same on a second test in a different spot.
- The wobble is read in motion: nudged, the centre moves as one set mass with a faint tremble, rather than a liquid ripple travelling across the surface.
- The other signs agree with the test: risen and just shrinking from the sides, the top set and dry to a light touch with no wet gloss on it.
- Pressed lightly at the middle it springs back and leaves no lasting dent.
Where it goes wrong It was judged on the clock and on how the edges looked, so a centre still liquid went to the rack and sank as it cooled, a dense wet seam under a perfectly browned top.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Demi-sec Champagne
- Also Right
- Off-dry Chenin (Vouvray)
- From the Taps
- Fruited sour
- Zero-Proof
- Coconut water with lime
Tropical sweetness wants bubbles or Chenin’s honeyed acid: richness met with lift, not more weight.
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