I experienced these one day about a month ago – unexpectedly - at a barbecue. They caught my eye right away. But first barbecue, I thought. Wrong decision. Once I tried them, I didn’t want to stop. This is what is goint to happen to you: you see those squares, you pick them up. They feel quite heavy. But once you have your first bite, you will be surprised how soft and juicy they are. It is incredible. And then they lure you into taking another one, and one more [...]
This is apparently a Croatian recipe – cupavci meaning coconut squares . Try them, they are worth the effort!
correction: Melrose just pointed out that cupavci actually means wuscheln (~to tousle) in Germany, and that definitely does not mean coconut square, thanks Melrose. She also traced the origins back to Australia. What an interesting travel they made!
Ingredients:
for the batter
- 2 egg yolks
- 200 grams light brown sugar
- 300 grams all purpose flour
- 5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp butter, at room temperature
- 200 ml. milk
- 2 egg whites
for the frosting
- 200 grams confectioners’ sugar
- 100 grams semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
- 130 grams butter
- 200 ml. milk
- 200 grams coconut flakes
Preheat oven to 355 °F / 180°C. Prepare a 9″ x 9 ” / 22cm x 22cm baking dish (I greased it and lined it with parchment paper, since I had a squared spring form at hand).
Whisk egg yolks with sugar and butter until fluffy. Mix flour with baking powder. Add flour and milk to the eggyolk-butter mixture and mix until you obtain a homogenous batter. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and then fold them carefully into the prepared batter. Fill the batter into the baking dish and bake around 35-40 minutes, or until the surface becomes evenly golden. Remove from oven and cool about 20 minutes or until lukewarm (can you say so to something solid?). Then cut into even squares. If you wish, remove the crisp sides, so you get all soft and fluffy squares.
While the cake is baking:
Heat milk, butter, chopped chocolate and confectioners’ sugar in a thick-bottomed pot and let simmer a bit. Be careful that the milk does not overshoot, though! This mixture will remain very liquid. Let it cool a bit. Fill a little bowl with coconut flakes.
Once the cake has cooled enough and you cut neat squares, take a fork and dip one square at a time into the chocolate-milk sauce and turn until evenly coated. Then turn it around a few times in the coconut flakes until evenly coated there, too. Cool at least 1 hour on a sheet of baking paper.
Source: word of mouth & combination of various online sources
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wow….I bet they are so very good!! definitely worth trying!
thanks for the inspiration!
Fantastic! i will definitely give these a try. wonderful shot too!
Cupavci, never heard about that before. Well, I guess I just learned something new! Thanks for that
Mmm they sound delicious. They remind me a little of coconut fridge balls! But like the fancy version
I love coconut and chocolate together! I haven’t heard of these, but am excited to figure it out!
I knew I was in trouble when i saw those hairy looking squares. I will have to make them and hopefully stop eating.
These caught my eye–Look soooo good!
Have a company potluck-these will be perfect. Thanks
thanks a lot all of you. what a surprise these made it to the top 9! I hope they turn out nicely for you. Please note that the chocolate milk mixture is supposed to stay very liquid so the cubes can soak a bit!
LG from Germany
Thank you melrose and thanks for pointing that out. At the barbecue I attended a croation lady brought the cupavci and she told me it was a croation specialty and her mom always made them when she was little. I asked her what cupavci meant and she said cocoswürfel. well, maybe she was not all too fluent in Croatian as she grew up in Germany. After that experience I googled the word and found many recipes online (e.g here and here that were related to Croatia, so I did not question that they would have their origins there. But maybe they did evolve in parallel to the Lamingtons in Australia?
And wuscheln actually fits their shape and appearance very well. Thanks a lot! LG from Germany, too (Berlin/Potsdam actually).
These definitely look great! Can’t wait to try them out!
cupavci su super i uvek ce ostati #1
Cupavci!!!!!!! Love them.
Simple to make yet very tasteful. Kids and grown up love them.
My mom often made them for me and now days I make them for my kids.