Brazilian Coconut Corn Bread (Gluten Free!)

Every year we have a special day to show off a bit of our countries of origin at the International Faire at school. Years before we brought brigadeiros, ants house cake and even Carioca black beans to share with the students. This time we brought Bolo de Fubá,  one of the traditional foods prepared in the month of June – and sometimes throughout the year in some regions – in most parts of Brazil.

This corn bread is one of the corn-based staples of Festas Juninas. It's a time to celebrate the harvest of the corn, to dance to old folk songs and to dress up like a caipira – a peasant style which includes a raffia hat, some makeup to pretend that we are country people, and gingham shirts. It's also the month of Saint Anthony, Saint John, and Saint Peter.

Baking this cake was a great opportunity to share stories and food with my children and their colleagues about this very special time of year which makes part of my childhood. It was so much fun that we even improvised a little fishing game, also typical on those parties. Kids "fish" prizes from a decorated cardboard box with a bamboo rod with a magnet on its end. That way they all had to fish for cake!

Bazilian Cornbread with Coconut

I chose yellow cornmeal, and I used unsweetened coconut to make sure that it wouldn't be overly sweet, a common taste in Brazilian cuisine inherited from the Portuguese traditions.

For cake:

4 cups yellow fine cornmeal
2 cups unsweetened dry coconut flakes
1tbsp baking powder
2 cups milk
1/2 cup melted butter or canola oil
1 cup sugar
4 eggs

For topping:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup milk
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 tbsp butter
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F. Line an 8x13-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Mix eggs, sugar, and oil (or butter) in another bowl. When the mix is creamy, add milk gradually. Add dry mix to the wet ingredients, mixing with a spatula. Pour batter in prepared baking pan and bake for about 45 minutes or up to when it gets a golden crust.

For the topping, melt butter in a skillet and add coconut, stirring as it toasts. When the coconut is toasted, add condensed milk and spices, then reduce it over medium heat, stirring constantly. When mix changes to a custard texture, pour over the cake right after it comes out of the oven. Enjoy!

Homemade sugar cubes — a sweet gift

My kids lead a sheltered life. My 10-year-old encountered sugar cubes for the first time just last month, at a café in Paris. His chocolat chaud was served with a small bowl of perfect little sugar cubes — he thought they were the best part of the drink. I let him believe it was an only-in-Europe kind of thing ... until I was inspired to make sugar cubes with the boys for Mother's Day and Teacher Appreciation Week.

Sugar cubes are such fun to make with kids! Minimal effort, big payoff — and you can make them at the last minute or ages ahead of time. The hardest part is keeping the kids from licking their fingers over and over and over.

Here's how you do it: Add a tiny bit of liquid — flavored extract, juice, water, coffee, even liqueur — into sugar. Then firmly press the mixture into small molds, or shape into a flat brick and cut into cubes or with shaped cutters. Let the cubes dry a few hours until they're rock solid.

Packaged in a little jar, they make a beautiful gift all on their own. They're even better presented with a mug and tea (or sparkling wine!).

The flavor possibilities are limitless. The boys decided to make heart-shaped vanilla cubes using a scraped vanilla bean and vanilla extract. I threw together a few more varieties: rose-scented hearts and stars, bright pink cubes made with grenadine, and hearts using lemon verbena-infused simple syrup I had made for lemonade and iced tea.

I added a dab of food coloring to the lemon verbena cubes. They came out VERY BRIGHT.

A few tips:

• Don't add too much liquid. The mixture should be grainy. Think wet sand for castle building, or a good snowball. If you use food coloring, add just a teeny tiny dab so you don't end up with, say, Day-Glo yellow.
  
  
• Keep them small. If you have tiny candy molds or cute little cookie cutters, use them. Big, thick pieces take longer to dry — and are a lot of sugar per bite. Mine are a little bigger than ideal, but the kids aren't complaining.
  
  
• Pack firmly. Too loose, and they'll be crumbly.
  
  
• Leave them alone to dry. Just let them sit on the counter, in the mold if you're using one, and resist the urge to poke them. After a few hours, check them carefully. When they're hard enough to handle, gently remove them from the mold and turn all of them upside-down. Ours were done within 3 to 5 hours, except for the grenadine batch. I put those in the oven at 200 degrees for half an hour to finish drying them. 

The colorful grenadine ones ended up being the kids' favorites — they ate them straight, and popped them in ginger ale for an instant Shirley Temple. But they took a full 24 hours to dry thoroughly. We kept poking them impatiently and mashed quite a few.

The small cutters were my favorite tool for crisply edged shapes, but the molds were easiest for the kids. I love our rough-cut cubes, but if you want something dainty and perfect, this silicone mini cube tray would be perfect. I'm loving the idea of using this tiny leaf mold for minty sugar cubes to serve with tea.

Homemade sugar cubes

To fancy things up, try rose water, orange blossom water, or extracts such as almond, mint, or lemon. Or you can make simple syrup infused with whole spices or herbs (follow this technique for lavender syrup). You can even add vanilla bean, edible flowers, or a bit of spice.

1 cup sugar
2 to 4 teaspoons water, infused syrup, extract, or a combination
optional: food coloring
molding equipment suggestions: candy molds, cookie cutters, spatula, dough scraper

Add 2 teaspoons of liquid to the sugar (and a tiny bit of food coloring, if using) and stir with a fork until well blended. Stir in more liquid, just a few drops at a time, until the texture is like wet sand. It should be almost slushy, but not so wet that the sugar dissolves.

For molded cubes, press sugar firmly into molds and smooth away loose sugar.

To make cubes or use cookie cutter shapes, pour sugar into a straight-sided square or rectangular container and press down to pack it in firmly. It doesn't need to cover the whole bottom — use a dough scraper, spatula, or even an old credit card to press it down and square off the edge (see photo at right).

For cubes, use a sharp knife to cut cubes. Leave them in place for an hour or so, until they're pretty firm, then gently separate them a little bit.

To use cookie cutters, press cookie cutter into sugar, then carefully lift up the cutter and drop the shaped sugar on a piece of parchment paper. If it doesn't slide out easily, use your finger to gently push it down.

Leave the sugar cubes in the mold or on the paper to dry completely. Once they're hard enough to handle, gently remove cubes from the molds and turn them over to finish drying completely. You can put them in a 180 degree oven for 30 to 60 minutes to speed things up.

Store cubes in an airtight container.

Simple sweet potato soup for spring

This is a light, fresh soup just right for spring. You can pull it together in minutes with just two pantry basics: a sweet potato and a can of coconut milk, which adds creaminess without overwhelming the flavor.

Add a little something extra — a touch of vinegar, a stalk of lemongrass and some time, if you have it, or a few drops of hot sauce — and you have a refreshing soup that's a perfect bridge from cold-weather curries to summertime gazpacho.

I threw this together after coming home from a long holiday to a mostly-empty pantry. Spring showers called for soup, but all I had for veggies were some lettuce and a lone sweet potato.

I zapped the potato in the microwave, opened a can of light coconut milk, and pulled a stalk of lemongrass from the garden. (I know, lemongrass is hardly a pantry staple. But if you have some, use it!) Everything went into a pot for half an hour, and I stirred whenever I passed through the kitchen. A splash of vinegar and a squeeze of lemon, and it was ready to go.

The result is a little sweet without being cloying — the vinegar really elevates the taste. Adults and spice-happy kids might like it with a drop or two of Sriracha. This one is definitely going into regular rotation: Even my coconut milk-averse, sweet potato-hating husband liked this and helped himself to a second bowl. (He says it doesn't taste like sweet potato; I say it does, and he just hasn't given sweet potatoes a fair chance.)

Springtime Sweet Potato Soup

To cook a sweet potato quickly, prick it several times with a fork and set it on a plate in the microwave. Cook on high for 8-10 minutes until soft, turning once halfway through. Let cool and peel.

The vinegar and lemon/lemongrass aren't essential, but they elevate this soup from good enough to mighty tasty.

1 medium sweet potato, cooked and mashed
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup water (or broth)
1 to 3 teaspoons cider vinegar or rice wine vinegar
salt and pepper
2 stalks lemongrass, stalk only, peeled and split in half lengthwise, and/or a squeeze of lemon juice
Sriracha (optional)

Stir together mashed sweet potato, coconut milk, and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Add lemongrass stalks, if using. Warm to barely a simmer, stirring occasionally. If using lemongrass, keep on the burner for 20 to 30 minutes, then remove the lemongrass stalks.

Purée soup with an immersion blender (or blend in batches, carefully, in a blender or food processor). Stir in vinegar, a teaspoon at a time, until it has the right amount of zip to suit your taste. (If you're adding lemon juice, this is the time to do it.) Season with salt and pepper. If it's too thick, stir in a little more water, broth, or coconut  milk.

Optional:  Serve with Sriracha for those who want to add a little more heat.