Coconut Jam
well, more like a chunky candied spread?
Regardless of what you celebrate, I hope you’ve all been having a nice and relaxing festive season thus far! Many of you have noticed that Instagram has deleted its city guide section but fear not, I will be uploading all of these guides back onto my Substack. You can find my Paris guide here and the rest are coming! These do take a while to compile as I include not only restaurants and sights but also wine bars, bards, bakeries, snacky spots, shopping and more. If you’d like to have access to my city guides as well as recipes, December’s advent calendar and condiment Q&As consider subscribing :)
COCONUT JAM
I have been feeling *tropical* this holiday season. Maybe it’s because I had quite a few too many piña coladas during my trip to Miami? Maybe it’s the fact that we eat hundreds of litchis every Christmas in France? Who knows, regardless, I’m not mad about it. You all got the recipe(s) for banana jam, now let’s get into coconut jam. This one is a taaaad more laborious if you choose to crack open your own coconut like me, but it’s worth it.
The good news is, coconuts are in season year round so there’s no rush trying this recipe out! I will say, it is a great “snow element” in holiday bakes… but no pressure.
WHY CLAIRE, WHY???
Although I’ve seen a lot coconut desserts, most of these call for coconut cream. For example, Kaya, is a wonderful, creamy, sticky, sweet breakfast condiment which is extremely popular throughout Southeast Asia. It’s made not only with coconut cream but also with eggs and sugar to give it an unctuous texture. It’s also sometimes flavored with pandan *delish delish delish*. Its name literally means “rich” in Malay - it’s a decadent condiment to say the least.
Honestly, I’ve always wanted to make coconut jam using coconut water because I had never seen or tasted one before. A fun challenge! It had been on my mind for months (I wish I were exaggerating) and the day finally came. When I walked into my local Marks and Spencer’s and saw that coconuts were on sale for £1 each, I snagged a few and the experiments began.
During my last banana jam tests, I had a lot of success making a syrup first and then adding the fruit back in. I thought to myself, what if I combine the coconut water with a ton of lime juice and some sugar? Would that make a delicious base for a jam?