Bake Along #28 - Gluten Free Coconut Checkerboard Brownies

I was curious to find how this two combination taste like
Brownies and coconut, one thing I never think of putting together
To my surprise, it's not bad at all - an occasional nice twist which every brownie lover can't say no to
East and West brownies, very nice indeed :)

Knowing that my kids will not fancy brownies with coconut, I made using 20cm square pan, half just plain brownies :)
They enjoyed the brownies, a little too sweet - even though I have reduced the amount of sugar used, but nice

One problem was, I couldn't make a nice checkerboard design, I wasn't sure what I made actually... Checkerboard? No... Polkadot? No...
Anyway, it looked better after I cut into small squares hehehe....

Fudgy brownies - my kind of brownies :)

Recipe is from the book Bon Appetit Desserts by Barbara Fairchild

What you need:
(modified to suit my family liking)

Coconut batter:
(I made half of the recipe below)

200g fresh grated coconut
20g icing sugar
60ml cream of coconut
60g Philadelphia cream cheese, cut into 1 inch cube, room temperature
1 large egg
a big squeeze of lemon juice
pinch of salt

Brownies batter:

90g unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces
100g dark chocolate, chopped
2 large eggs
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
200g golden brown sugar (will reduce to 150g the next time I bake this again)
85g mocaf flour, sifted then measured
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt

To make the coconut batter:
Measure 1/3 cup flaked coconut, cover and set aside. Place the remaining coconut and sugar in processor, finely chop. Add cream of coconut, cream cheese and blend well. Add egg, lemon juice and salt, blend well, stop ocassionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Transfer to bowl. Cover and refrigerate til very firm, about 3 hours (I did overnight)

To make the brownies batter:
Butter pan (I used 20 x 20 x 4cm square pan). Melt butter and chocolate in heave small saucepan over low heat, stir til smooth. Pour into medium bowl. Cool to lukewarm. Whisk in eggs and vanilla. Whisk sugar, flour, baking powder, salt in small bowl
Sift over chocolate mixture. Mix til blended and smooth. Spread 1 1/4 cups of the batter in the pan and cover pan tightly with aluminium foil. Refrigerate til very firm about 3 hours. Also refrigerate the remaining batter in the container (I did overnight)

1. Position rack in the centre of the oven and preheat to 165degC
2. Alternate 1 tbsp of the remaining brownies batter and 1 tbsp of coconut batter over chocolate layer, filling pan completely. Sprinkle reserved 1/3 cup of the coconut over coconut mounds, press gently to adhere. bake for approximately 45 minutes til skewer comes out clean
3. Cool completely and cut

This time, I used gluten free mocaf flour for this brownies, this is my second brownies using this flour (the first one I used different recipe) and both gave nice results
A little details about mocaf flour can be read HERE

Initially I wanted to use gluten free flour mixture from this site which many gave good reviews
But then I realized what I had was tapioca starch, while the recipe said tapioca flour
I wasn't sure whether these two are the same or different
I googled for information, many said they're the same, but some said different
So, I decided to use mocaf flour for now, while searching for the real truth :)
Anybody know the answer? :)

This post is for Bake Along event, hosted by Joyce, Lena and Zoe

Please view other wonderful bakers in the link tool below to see their lovely brownies too :)

I'm also submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #21 Gluten Free Bakes hosted by Hankerie