Bakes are the Caribbean breakfast bread (fried or oven-baked); the coconut version folds grated coconut into the dough, common in Dominica and Trinidad.
Split a warm coconut bake and the soft, golden bread is studded with sweet shreds of coconut, lightly sweet and tender. Bite: pillowy and faintly sweet, the coconut chewy and fragrant, the crust golden. Filled with savory saltfish or spread with guava jam, it's the everyday Dominican breakfast bread, eaten with cocoa tea.
Baking powder makes the dough puff into a light bake; butter and grated coconut give tenderness and flavor. Frying (or baking) cooks it fast to golden — the coconut adds sweetness, fragrance, and a pleasant chew to the everyday bread.
Variations
Oven-baked (lighter). With more sugar (sweet). With raisins. With a cinnamon note. Smaller as rolls. Plain (no coconut).
On the Palate
Where Coconut Bakes sits in the Dominica flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6How it's made
8 steps · 25 min active + 25 min waiting
- 15 min
Mix 400 g flour with 2 tbsp sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, and 40 g butter.
- 22 min
Stir in 100 g grated coconut.
- 36 min
Add coconut milk (or water) and knead into a soft dough.
Watch outAdd the coconut milk gradually — the dough wants to be soft and just-tacky, not wet; too much liquid and the bakes turn dense.
- 425 min
Rest the dough, covered, 25 min.
Watch outThe rest lets the gluten relax so the dough rolls out without springing back — don't skip it or the bakes come out tough.
- 54 min
Divide into rounds and flatten.
- 66 min
Fry in hot oil (or bake at 190°C) until puffed and golden, ~3 min per side.
Watch outOil ready when a scrap of dough sizzles and floats right up; fry to deep gold and puffed — pale means the oil's too cool and it'll soak up grease.
- 72 min
Drain on paper.
- 82 min
Split and serve warm with saltfish, cheese, or guava jam.
