A while ago I promised that I would tell you in great detail about this fabulous chocolate...and now is the time! Let me take you back to December last year, I had gone down to London for a
day of fun with my sister. We did what we always do, stuff our face with cupcakes and find as many yummy treats as possible! We found ourselves on the Kings Road because I was sourcing out some yummy Reese's ingredients from Partridge's. For some reason, and I can't even remember why but we wondered into the Waitrose they have there...and that's when we found it! It was my sister Mara who spotted it and as I realised what it was she was pointing at there may or may not have been squeals of delight! We picked up a bar immediately and promptly headed to the till. The only problem was, like I said, we had been stuffing our faces all day so we were too full at the time to eat the whole thing but we did each take one square of chocolate to try and it was amazing!!
I want you to think of those Kinder sticks that you get, which just so happen to be a favourite childhood chocolate of mine. They never used to sell them in England back in the day so they remind me of the last day of our summer holidays spent in France when we would head to the supermarche, take a mini kid sized trolley for a spin and fill it up with a stash of Kinder sticks that would last us for the next little while!
Imagine that lovely creamy filling that you get in them, and then imagine that it's coconut flavour and sandwiched between a superior quality milk chocolate like Lindt? Is your mouth watering just a little at the thought? because let me tell you after that first taste I spent many a night dreaming about this chocolate bar! The reason I had to dream is because ever since that day in December, I have hunted it down in every Lindt store and Waitrose I can find to no avail! I tried the Waitrose in Angelsey (the only one in North Wales) and there was no Coconut Lindt in sight, I tried three different Waitrose stores when I went to visit my parents in Shropshire. It became like that book hunt in the film Serendipity, where he couldn't not walk past a used book store without checking to see if the book with her phone number in was in there. I couldn't walk past a Waitrose without going in to see if my new favourite chocolate was lurking in there, even when I would see those little mini Waitrose stores you get now and I knew deep down they would never stock it I would still have to check!
It was getting rather desperate! I'd even tried to track it down online and on ebay and was drawing a blank. When I had first got my hands on that bar in December my intentions had been to bake up something delicious with it, but it was so delicious that I just couldn't stop eating it when I got home from London and it disappeared rather quickly! So imagine my delight when after 5 months of hunting for it, I ended up in quite a large Waitrose in Ampthill when visiting my mother-in-law and I finally found it again! If I could have bought their whole supply right then I would have but being a poor student 2 bars was all I could afford!
and then I set to work thinking of the most delicious thing I could think to bake in order to showcase the true yumminess of this chocolate bar! and this is what I came up with - fudgy chocolate brownies, filled with a layer of shredded coconut and condensed milk filling, and upon removing them from the oven I placed individual squares of the Lindt Coconut chocolate all over them and let them melt their magic into the top of the brownies.
You know when things turn out even better then how you had planned in your head? well this bake was one of those! With each bite you got a rich fudgy brownie, a chewy creamy mouthful of coconut from the filling, a crisp crunch from the surface of the brownie and a taste of silky smooth creamy coconut filling followed by some ooey gooey melted chocolate - hmmm: most definitely the best brownie that has ever been made by my hands.
If you're a coconut lover then you need these in your life - and you need that chocolate bar in your life for sure! So for now I can guarantee that if you go to Waitrose on the King's Road or in Ampthill you will find it...if anyone else has any rare Coconut Creation Lindt sightings then let me know!
Triple Coconut Brownies:
Makes 15
For the brownies:
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
310g dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
225g unsalted butter, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 1/2 cups caster sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut milk
For the filling:
2 cups shredded coconut
2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
For the topping:
One bar of Lindt Coconut Creation, broken into individual squares
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Butter the sides and bottom of a 9 x 13 inch pan and line it with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour salt and cocoa powder together. Set aside.
Put the chocolate and butter in a large bowl and set it over a saucepan of simmering water, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate and butter are completely melted and smooth. Turn off the heat, but keep the bowl over the water and add the sugars. Whisk until completely combined, then remove the bowl from the pan. The mixture should be room temperature.
Add 2 eggs to the chocolate mixture and whisk to combine, add the remaining eggs and whisk again. Add the vanilla and coconut milk and stir until combined. Do not overbeat the batter at this stage or your brownies will be cakey (and that is something no brownie should ever have to go through).
Sprinkle the flour mixture over the chocolate mixture. Using a rubber spatula (not a whisk) fold the flour mixture into the chocolate until just a bit of the flour mixture is visible.
Pour half the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth the top. Mix the shredded coconut and condensed milk together in a medium sized bowl. Spread this mixture on top of the brownie mix. Pour the remaining half of the brownie batter on top of the coconut filling and smooth the top.
Bake in the centre of the oven for 28-30 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through baking, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Break the Lindt Coconut Chocolate into individual pieces and gently press each piece into the top of the brownie. Leave the chocolates to melt into the brownie for 5 or so minutes. Leave the brownies to cool completely, then lift them out of the pan using the parchment paper. Cut into squares and serve.
Sit back, eat, gorge, indulge, and wonder how you have lived for so long without these beauts in your life?!
