Coconut bites - all natural taste of summer

If, like me, you have spent this summer in front of a computer screen or inside an office building then as August starts it can feel like summer is slipping away, and don't get me wrong I'm looking forward to autumn and winter, but it's nice to celebrate summer while it's here. So here is a little taste of the tropical to help you hold on to the summer.

Bounty bars are advertised as a taste of tropical flavour and I bought in, so when I thought tropical I thought about them. But they are not the healthiest thing you can eat, so here's my low fat, low sugar version.

You will need:

3 egg whites
350g dessicated coconut
80g (equivilant) stevia
20g caster sugar (alternatively you can leave out the stevia and use 100g sugar)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp white rum
30g ground almonds
30g  dark sugar free cocoa powder

1 large saucepan
1 metal bowl
1 whisk
1 sugar thermometre

1 - Put your egg whites, sugar and stevia in your metal bowl. Heat some water in the saucepan and then gently bring up the temperature of the mixture, whisking constantly until it reaches 160'F.

2- Remove from the heat and beat vigourously until you have achieve a meringue

3 - Add the vanilla essence, rum and whisk.

 4 -  Add the coconut, ground almonds and mix thoroughly.

 5 - Chill in the fridge for about an hour

6-  Press into squares and use a sieve to sprinkle cocoa powder over all the sides to coat.

They taste sweet, soft and delicious and the hint of rum compines with the coconut to make you think of beach holidays rather than you computer.