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AI-generated photograph: Three glossy dark amber coconut drops on a small round slate, chunks of coconut catching the light, a curl of fresh coconut beside them

Home · Recipes · Jamaican coconut drops with ginger

Caribbean · Snacks

Jamaican coconut drops with ginger

fresh coconut · dark sugar · warm ginger

AI-generated photograph

Little chewy clusters of fresh coconut cooked in dark sugar with ginger and spice until it sets like fudge. A Jamaican sweet that keeps for days in a tin.

Contains: none of the 14 allergens, as written. None of the 14 allergens is in this recipe as written. Coconut is not counted as a tree nut under UK rules.

Ingredients

  • 1 fresh coconut (about 250g of flesh)
  • 20g ginger, peeled and grated
  • 225g dark brown soft sugar
  • Half a teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • A quarter teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • A pinch of salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

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Let's cook

  1. Open the coconut. Push a clean screwdriver through the softest of the three dark "eyes" and pour the water out. Wrap the coconut in a tea towel and hit it hard around the middle with a rolling pin until it cracks. Prise the white flesh away from the shell with a blunt knife.
  2. Peel off the thin brown skin with a vegetable peeler if you like (keeping it is traditional). Cut the flesh into small cubes, about 5mm. You need about 250g.
  3. Put the coconut cubes, ginger and 250ml water in a heavy pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
  4. Stir in the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Keep it at a steady bubble on a medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring often, until most of the liquid has gone and the syrup is thick and sticky and coats the back of a spoon.
  5. Take it off the heat and stir in the vanilla. Hot sugar burns badly, so keep children away and do not taste it yet.
  6. Lay a sheet of baking paper on a tray. Drop tablespoons of the mixture onto it, leaving a gap between each, to make about 16 drops.
  7. Leave them for 30 minutes until cool and firm.

Tips

  • If the drops stay runny, the syrup was not cooked long enough. Scrape them back into the pan and bubble for 3 to 5 minutes more.
  • Soak the pan in hot water straight away: set sugar dissolves off easily.

Swaps

  • No fresh coconut: use 200g unsweetened coconut chips and simmer them in the water for 5 minutes only.
  • Lighter flavour: use light brown soft sugar instead of dark.

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