I am adding three Goan sweet recipes to this series – a simple Coconut Sweet – Gons, a more traditional Coconut Cake – Baath, and a roundish Coconut Cookie called Bolinhas, with a twist. Jeez, you’d think coconuts grew on trees back home! My wife and I picked the latter two from a collection of recipes made by our mums. They were all delicious and all bring back Christmas memories with our parents. The first recipe is called Gons and is Christmas Treat #5. 

When I think back to how much the tradition of cultural sweets has changed, I do get sad. I miss these Goan treats – I wouldn’t usually have more than a bite or two of most of these (not a sweet kind of guy), but this year, more than any other – I miss our parents so much more! This is a tribute to them and the lives they gave up back home to start all over again (in their 40’s in a foreign country) in order to give us a better life. Fifty years later, with that better life, we find ourselves struggling – in a pandemic, to cope with staying in household bubbles and not seeing our adult children when they only live a short distance away! I get strength thinking of our parents, their challenges and what it took to for them to succeed.

When I talk about cultural changes in sweets I’m referring to those sweets that we now bake in my household as opposed to when my parents were alive, especially the mums who had a strong connection to tradition. My baking is more westernized with cookies and bars, delicate things and sturdy things. These are their original recipes and I’ve tried to leave them in tact to honor them. I did have to make one or two adjustments in order to get you to try them, but nothing major – kind of.

So the first coconut sweet called is Gons, I think they called it gons as it was “gones” so quickly – just kidding! This is my pick and I remember family and friends bringing this down every time they visited from Goa or Tanzania. It was by far my favorite Goan sweet – sugar and coconut, what could go wrong! It is made from fresh tender (young) coconut, but for this recipe, I used the frozen scraped coconut. I can hear the audible gasps from Goan purists – it’s a recipe relax please. I want you to make this and if I told you that you needed to buy a young coconut, crack it open, scrape the white flesh from the coconut, cut it into thin strips and soak it for an hour or so, press it dry (make sure you reserve the milk – first pressing of the coconut flesh), and then do it – would you? Well then by all means do it! But this is for those folks who love to cook but are put off by extensive process recipes. I have no affiliation to this brand but I know their products are good! The ingredients in this frozen shredded coconut are “coconut” – that’s it. It’s the Divya brand and comes in a 315g package labelled “Shredded Coconut”.  This was my first attempt at making this and while the recipe origins are unknown, clearly someone gave it to us or it came from some family member back home.  I don’t recall either of the mum’s making this here in Canada. I adapted it from “1 coconut” and the same amount of sugar to equal weights of the packaged coconut and sugar.   This was my favorite from their files.

This recipe is so simple – three ingredients – plus salt (my addition) and vanilla, so please give it a try – I know you will enjoy it! It also comes together so quickly and chances are you will not give it a chance to cool too much before devouring – but do let it cool. It firms up slightly which gives you that delicious splinter mouth feel that is folded in with the sweet softness of the coconut. I used a length of parchment that would hold about 16 mounds of the finished sweet spaced 3” apart (see picture). You could also just cut 16 squares of parchment about 3” x 3” each. Either method works just fine. I have also had these on edible on rice paper, I might try that next time with tender coconut (the real stuff). Wash your hands, wear a mask and socialize responsibly as per the guidelines in your region. We will get through this! As always – enjoy!

Ingredients
1 315g package frozen shredded coconut
315g sugar
150ml water
½ tsp vanilla or coconut extract
Pinch of salt

Suggestions and/or changes
Tender coconut is available in cans in nearly all Asian grocery stores as well as some grocery stores in the International/Asian section – I bought the frozen grated before realizing the cans were available.  I have not used/seen the texture of the cans but I imagine it is softer so less cooking time will be required 
If you are cracking a fresh coconut to make this, the water is refreshing and absolutely delicious, but don’t keep it, you must drink it fresh
When your use a fresh coconut, the water you soak the coconut “meat” in is referred to as coconut milk – the first pressing of coconuts yields the best and is thicker and is great for use in baking/cooking (curries) 
If you don’t have an immediate use for the coconut milk, put it in a labeled freezer bag and freeze for use at a later date
You can use just coconut extract instead of vanilla or use a combination 
Clear vanilla will give you a nice white sweet, the dark vanilla colors it slightly – still delicious
Small mounds of coconut are better, this is a sweet product, so not too much please

Directions
Thaw the package of coconut and place the shredded coconut in a bowl, add water to just cover the surface, let it soak while you start the sugar and water measurements
In a non-stick pan, add the sugar and water – bring up to a boil, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar
Swish the coconut around in the water to break it up and to extract excess liquid
Pour this through a sieve but reserve the liquid – see suggestions below, press the coconut against the sieve to remove as much water (milk) as possible 
Add the coconut to the sugar syrup, bring up to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes – you should see the coconut becoming translucent
Cook this for another 15 – 20 minutes stirring often – as the water dries it will start to thicken and as you are stirring, you should be able to see the bottom clearly – this means it is ready to go
Using small tongs, pick up a portion and place it on the parchment – you should get about 16 mounds from this batch, but in this case less is more!
I used any remaining sugar syrup – which thickened beautifully to pour about ½ tsp on top of each coconut mound – hence the bottoms are extra “shugary” (a no-no according to purists, but I like living on the edge!  Besides, I tasted this coconut sugar, wasn’t about to throw it out).
Let dry completely on the parchment, 6-8 hours or overnight, then cut around each mound if you used a single piece of parchment or transfer each cut square of parchment to an airtight container and store in a cool dry place