Cocada de Forno
(Oven Cocada)

Cocada is a dessert or a small sweet made with - you guessed - coconut. There are a lot of ways of preparing these wonderful offerings from Bahia; this one happens to be a "big" cocada, that you eat with a spoon.

1 lb of grated coconut (the real thing, please, not the sweetened stuff from a package) Latino markets sell frozen grated coconut that tastes just like the ones I used to grate at home. Saves you time and grated knuckles...

4 egg yolks

2 cups of sugar

1 cup of milk

2 Tbsp of butter or margarine

Preheat oven to 350° F. Mix sugar, butter, egg yolks, milk and coconut together with a spoon. Put the mixture in a beautiful soufflé dish and bake it until the top is a golden color. Remove and let cool before serving. That's it! Put some Margareth Menezes or Daniela Mercury music on and you'll feel as if you were in Bahia...

Maria's Cookbook