Coconut bars are a traditional dessert throughout Asia and the Polynesian islands, made with coconut milk, sugar, and a setting agent. Variations include adding chocolate, eggs, almonds, and other ingredients. They are also known as haupia, maja blanca, and kanom ba bin. Coconut can also be used in savory and sweet dishes, such as coconut ganache.
A coconut bar is a culinary delight created for generations throughout Asia and the Polynesian islands. The traditional recipe is embodied by a dim sum dessert that mixes coconut milk, sugar, and perhaps some shredded coconut. To finalize the candy, a setting agent is used that produces a creamy, block-like texture if cornstarch and flour are used, or one that is more like Jell-O, if agar agar and gelatin are preferred. . Over time and many cultural interpretations, the coconut bar has taken on many other ingredients, from chocolate, eggs and almonds to butter, salt and even grated fresh corn.
A usual coconut bar starts by sweetening the coconut milk. For a true thickly thick bar, cornstarch and rice or wheat flour are mixed with milk, and perhaps a little water, to create a slurry that is poured into a loaf pan to cool and cut into square. Some mash the dough into patties and sear them on a skillet or bake them in the oven — for about 20 minutes at 400°F (about 200°C). Other iterations include ones that add agar agar and gelatin in place of flours, with the mixture poured into a mold to harden like stretchy Jell-O.
This dessert has several names. In Hawaii, locals call this treat haupia — a custard of just coconut milk, water, sugar, and cornstarch that’s blended and set to chill. For those in the Philippines, it is a jelly called maja blanca, with the addition of grated corn kernels and the standard agar in jelly. The Thai version, known as kanom ba bin, uses two types of rice flour, sugar, salt, water, coconut milk and shredded coconut.
Many Westerners have been introduced to the classic coconut bar at an Asian buffet or Polynesian luau. Others have slowly been assimilated by more complex versions of the recipe. This may have been the iconic Almond Joy candy bar recipe, with a coconut cream with almonds covered in milk chocolate. It might as well have been a chewy baked coconut bar loaded with not only your regular coconut and coconut milk, but ingredients like brown sugar, salt, vanilla, chocolate chips, nuts, flour, and eggs.
Coconut can be prepared, to great culinary effect, in a variety of both savory and sweet dishes. A close cousin to the coconut bar is a coconut ganache, which is widely considered a gourmet treat. This is done by depositing a layer of chocolate, then boiling cream, sugar and coconut milk for the top layer. The whole nugget is then brushed with coconut rum and sprinkled with toasted coconut. Occasionally, a chef can finish off these treats with a quick burn from a handheld torch.
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