Douce kokoye, Haitian coconut fudge

Foreign readers, think of douce kokoye as a Haitian-style coconut fudge bold in flavor.

What happens when you’re stuck at home for days at a time? If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time in the kitchen adapting recipes. Some of your experiments are successful. But others don’t come out quite like you had anticipated.

Today’s douce kokoye, coconut fudge in English, recipe is one of those. Though, my version of this douce kokoye tasted delightful, I was a bit disappointed. Texture wise, it just wasn’t quite as I would have wanted it to be.

Using my great-grandmother’s recipe as a starting point, I had envisioned a douce filled with grated coconut.

Why add shredded coconut to the mix, if the instructions didn’t call for it?

I was looking for something in between a tablet, as we call them here, and a douce. For those of you unfamiliar with those Haitian staples, let’s just say that I wanted coconut fudge with a texture.

Wonderfully rich sweet smells permeated the entire house the minute my coconut milk, milk, shredded coconut, sweet spices and sugar concoction started boiling. I was impatient to savor the final product.

My anticipation was such that I failed to leave the mixture on the stove long enough. I transferred my prepared batch on parchment paper a bit too early, and ended up with a chewy gooey Haitian-tablet-style-mixture that didn’t seem to harden as much as I had hoped it would as it cooled down.

Though it tasted heavenly, I simply wasn’t satisfied. I decided to cook the already cooled down batch a second time. As a result, except for a few shreds, my grated coconut seemed to magically disappear as if it had melted. I had accidentally created another bright and delightful douce kokoye, an unctuous coconut fudge, which my family enjoyed.

As a matter of fact, they even battled me for it. I got into an argument with both my dad and sister for refusing to let them eat it right after dinner. The heavenly coconut smell had tantalized their senses, and they were eager to eat the coconut fudge. They could not accept the fact that my photo shoot was more important than satisfying their taste buds. I myself couldn’t understand that they didn’t understand the importance of this food blog.  I had to give in, however. Since I wanted my douce to last long enough for pictures, I had no choice but to give them both a piece.

It is their seal of approval that convinced me that this recipe is still worth sharing. I am the only one who wasn’t fully happy with this batch. But that is simply because I was anticipating a different texture.

So to you I say, just remember as you try this recipe that the cooking time can totally change the texture. The longer you cook your douce, the fudgier it will be, even if you decided to add some shredded coconut to the mix.

Douce kokoye, Haitian coconut fudge with shredded coconut

This is the second douce kokoye, Haitian coconut fudge, recipe on this blog. While the first one calls for coconut milk, this one includes a mixture of coconut milk and regular milk. The shredded coconut is a personal touch for texture purposes. Feel free to omit it for an unctuous fudge.  

If you’d rather a toned down coconut flavor, this recipe is yours. However, if you want a pure coconut taste, I definitely encourage you to go for my other douce kokoye recipe, which is made using coconut milk and coconut milk only.

5 from 2 votes

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Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 50 minutes mins

Total Time 55 minutes mins

Ingredients

  

• 2 cups coconut milk
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 lime peel
• 1 cinnamon stick
• star anise
• 1 dash salt
• 1 cup shredded coconut (optional)

Instructions

 

• In a thick bottom pot, mix the coconut milk and milk
• Add the sugar, lime peel, cinnamon stick, star anise, salt and shredded coconut (optional)
• Cook on the stove while mixing constantly until the mixture thickens and caramelized
• Once the desired consistency is achieved, spread on a sheet on parchment and let cool
• Cut into squares and enjoy

Notes

The longer this coconut fudge cooks, the more unctuous and caramelized it becomes, even if you include the shredded coconut. 

Keyword coconut, fudge, haiti, sweets