How is coconut ice made?

Coconut ice is a soft British sweet of coconut and sugar, often in pink and white layers: see coconut ice. It was traditionally made at home, and it still is. There are two main ways to make it.

The no cook way

The simplest coconut ice needs no heat at all. A family recipe published by Eats Amazing uses just three ingredients: sweetened condensed milk, icing sugar and desiccated coconut.

1. White layer. A tin of condensed milk is mixed with icing sugar, then coconut is stirred in, and the mixture is pressed into a lined tray.
2. Pink layer. A second batch is made the same way, with pink food colouring stirred in until it is completely pink, and pressed on top.
3. Dry. The slab is left overnight until the top feels hard, then turned out, the paper peeled away, and left for a few more hours.
4. Cut. It is cut into squares and left to dry a little longer. Kept in a cool, dry place or an airtight box, the recipe says it lasts two to three weeks.

Here the thick, sweetened condensed milk binds the sugar and coconut together without any boiling.

The cooked way

Cooked coconut ice is made more like fudge. This is the method in a recipe from the sugar company Chelsea Sugar:

1. Boil. Butter, milk, icing sugar and salt are heated gently until the sugar dissolves, then boiled to the soft ball stage, 112 to 115°C.
2. Split and colour. Off the heat, vanilla goes in, the mixture is divided in half, one half is tinted pink, and coconut is added to both.
3. Beat. After a couple of minutes of cooling, the white half is beaten until it thickens and is spread in a lined tin. Then the pink half is beaten until thick and spread on top.
4. Set and cut. It is left to cool completely and cut into squares.

Beating a hot sugar syrup as it cools makes many tiny sugar crystals form, the same principle behind fondant, fudge and tablet. That gives this kind a firmer, slightly grainy bite: see how is fondant made? and how is Scottish tablet made?

Why the old versions went off

Coconut ice was traditionally made in British homes with coconut and a boiled sugar syrup. Those early versions had a short shelf life: they sometimes dried out, became too grainy, or even fermented. The modern sweet is made with condensed milk and sugar.

Layers and cousins

The pink and white look comes from colouring half the mixture and layering it with the uncoloured half before the slab is cut. In Australia, one old recipe used copha, a vegetable fat made from hydrogenated coconut oil. In the United States, the similar Neapolitan Coconut sold by Brach's and others usually adds a third layer flavoured with chocolate.

Allergens

Coconut is not one of the 14 allergens that must be declared in the UK. The tree nuts on that list are almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, cashews, pecans, Brazil nuts, pistachios and macadamias, although some people are allergic to coconut: see which sweets contain nuts? Both methods use milk products, and milk is one of the 14: see milk in sweets.

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