History Bakers: Chocolate Coconut Fingers (The Great British Bake Off - Week 5 – Chocolate)

To tie in with the Great British Bake Off’s chocolate week, staff at the History Centre tried their hand at making various chocolate recipes from the archive. I was particularly intrigued by a recipe for chocolate coconut fingers. This recipe was taken from a 1962 souvenir recipe book, compiled by members of the Kingston Wesley Church. It was written by Miss B. Harrison, and was altogether quite easy to follow – though I had to make two attempts to get it right!

Image: Recipe for Chocolate Fingers, C DCE/848/9

The recipe called for:

- ½ lb block milk chocolate

- 1 egg

- 1 cup coconut

- ½ cup castor sugar

For my first attempt, I melted the chocolate in a saucepan and then poured it into a cake tin, trying to spread it out into a smooth layer. I must have had it over the heat for too long, because the chocolate started to harden while still in the pan, and it was quite a battle to get it out! I thought at the time that the chocolate layer seemed quite thick, and decided to reduce the amount I used for my second attempt.

Next, I beat the egg in a bowl and measured out a cup of disseminated coconut and half a cup of sugar. I mixed these together until everything was combined, and then spread the mixture on top of the cooled chocolate. For my first attempt, I definitely used the wrong type of tin, and the fingers came out incredibly thick. I also struggled to get them to cook all the way through, and found them very crumbly to pick up and move into a container.

Here's a picture of my failed chocolate coconut fingers! They tasted great, especially chopped up and put on top of some yoghurt, but I wanted to give the recipe another go before bringing it in for everyone to try. 

Image: Attempt No. 1

My second attempt was much better. I started with a flat baking tray and used butter to cover it with a sheet of parchment paper. I made sure that I had everything prepared before I started to melt the chocolate, so I didn’t accidentally cook it for too long! Spreading the chocolate into this tin was far easier, and I laid it in quite a thin layer so it didn’t melt too far into the coconut concoction on top.

Instead of the half a pound that the recipe mentioned, I melted around 150 grams of chocolate – and it still turned out to be too much for the amount of coconut batter I had! Thankfully, because I used a much bigger tin this time, I could just trim off the unused edges of the chocolate.

Image: Adding the chocolate

I made the coconut mix in the same way as my first attempt – I just beat the egg, added in the other ingredients and then mixed them all together. It let me use up the rest of the bag of disseminated coconut, so I didn’t end up with half a bag sitting in my baking cupboard forever. Woo!

Image: Coconut mix before adding to the
rest of the recipe

Using a spatula, I spread the coconut mix onto the cooled chocolate in a layer that was probably around two centimetres thick. I trimmed off as much of the excess chocolate as I could, which was made significantly easier by the baking paper. Then, I put the tray into the oven at 180 degrees Celsius, and baked it for roughly 20 minutes until it was golden brown.

Image: Adding the coconut mix

After they were done baking, I allowed the fingers to cool overnight before cutting them up into fingers and popping them in a tin to take with me to the History Centre. This attempt was such a success that all of the fingers were eaten the same day I brought them in!

Image: The finished Chocolate Coconut Fingers

Some of the comments left by our wonderful taste-testers at the History Centre were as follows:

‘Lovely flavour of the coconut and chocolate together, soft chewy texture – very good!’

‘Very chewy – right ratio of coconut to chocolate’

‘Absolutely delicious! 10 out of 10 – well done.’

‘Super tasty, not a coconut fan but would eat many of these!’

‘Very lovely, soft, sweet – delightful.’

‘Love these! They remind me of coconut Haystacks that my nanna used to make! Fab.’

‘Beautifully light and flavoured – Thanks!’

All in all, I would say that my second attempt at this recipe was a success. Using less chocolate was definitely the right decision, as you only need a small amount to cover the bottom of the fingers and they are already very sweet! I don’t usually like coconut-flavoured sweets, but this recipe was absolutely delicious – I would highly recommend!