A chewy coconut candy of freshly grated coconut boiled with sugar and ginger, traditionally set with a white base and a bright pink-tinted top.
Despite its name, grater cake is not a cake at all but a beloved Jamaican confection, named for the grating used to shred the coconut. Sold by higglers and corner shops, its cheerful pink-and-white look made it an iconic childhood sweet across the island.
Sweet and intensely coconutty, with a soft, fudgy chew that yields to grainy crystallized sugar. A clean bite of ginger keeps the sugar from feeling cloying.
Boiling the syrup past saturation and stirring as it cools forces the sugar to crystallize, giving grater cake its characteristic grainy, fudge-like set rather than a glassy hard candy.
Variations
Pink-and-white grater cake, busta (hard grater cake), ginger grater cake
On the Palate
Where Grater Cake Jamaican sits in the Jamaican flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 10How it's made
8 steps · 10 min
- 13 min
Combine grated coconut, sugar, water and grated ginger in a heavy pot.
- 212 min
Boil over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the liquid thickens to a syrup.
- 38 min
Continue cooking until the mixture pulls away from the sides and grains of sugar appear.
Watch outStop the moment the mass pulls from the sides and you see sugar grains — a second too long and it seizes hard instead of setting fudgy.
- 43 min
Quickly spoon two-thirds onto a greased tray and press flat.
- 53 min
Tint the remaining third with a little pink food coloring and spread over the top.
- 62 min
Score into squares or diamonds while still warm.
Watch outScore into squares while it's still warm and soft — let it fully set first and it shatters instead of cutting clean.
- 730 min
Allow to cool and set firm.
- 81 min
Break apart and serve as a sweet.
