I was so happy to finally have an oven again during our time on Bali. However, since we only spent one month at that place I didn’t want to stock up on too many ingredients and resorted to cake mixes from the box.
The only two Western-style cake mixes at the grocery store in Bali were Vanilla Butter Cake and Chocolate Chip Brownies. (This explains the recent increase in recipes involving brownie mix). I also tried a few Indonesian-style mixes, but they seem to like much denser, drier and less sweet types of cake. Some of the local cake flavors were quite interesting. Green Pandan flavored cake stood out the most to me.
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Another widely available ingredient all over South-East Asia is coconut. I had already tried myself on a combination of brownie mix and coconut with Brownie Macaroons. They turned out quite good (aside from the chilli coconut fail), but I had yet another combination idea.
Rich and chewy chocolate chip brownies with a sweet and decadent grated coconut macaroon topping. Many recipes for a macaroon topping that I found online required evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk. While those are widely available around Asia, I didn’t have any at home and the house was quite a ways out of the city, so we only went grocery shopping once a week.
Finally though, I found a recipe that used a mixture of egg white and sugar with salt and vanilla together with the grated coconut. The recipe calls for sweetened coconut, however, I freshly grated the coconut (only packaged grated coconut I could find was chilli flavored) so it was unsweetened. If you also use unsweetened coconut, increase the sugar amount by 1 or 2 tablespoons.
The macaroon topping is moist and chewy at room temperature and I had a hard time cutting them cleanly. I therefore recommend cutting these Coconut Macaroon Brownies when chilled, as it is much easier. You can use a regular brownie mix or your favorite recipes. If it doesn’t include chocolate chips, you can add a handful or leave them out if you prefer.
Macaroon topping recipe via Marzipan Mom.
- brownie batter for 8" or 9" square pan, from box or scratch
- ½ cup chocolate chips optional
- 1 egg white
- 1 cup sweetened, shredded coconut
- ¼ cup sugar
- pinch of salt
- ¾ tsp. vanilla extract
- Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare brownie mix according to box directions, adding chocolate chips if desired. Fill batter into lined 8" or 9" square pan.
- In a medium bowl combine egg white, coconut, sugar, salt and vanilla. Put the bowl over a saucepan or skillet with barely simmering water. Stir mixture until hot and egg whites have thickened and turned opaque, 3-4 minutes.
- Spread coconut topping over brownie batter. Bake for about 25 minutes until macaroon topping is golden brown. Let cool in pan, then chill in the fridge. When chilled, lift out of pan and cut into squares.
I actually thought you were grating a pancake before I read the post.
I love how you can make do with what you have in Asia. Very creative. 🙂
Ooops..I guess one more reason to work on my composition 😉 Yeah no grating pancakes here, but I totally love freshly grated coconut.
Looks and sounds yummy and so very moist!
Thanks so much Jacquee 🙂