Mounds Bars...or should I say coconut truffles

It's a beautiful day, so I'm sitting outside as I'm writing this entry. I took the day off for a dentist appointment and wound up with a gorgeous, 70 degree March day. My whiteness is scaring the neighbors as I lay in the backyard, but who cares about the drunk college kids anyway? It seems that they're just waking up...

So I haven't spent this entire day outside. No, of course I had to do a round of baking. This time I decided to try a recipe I saw on Handle the Heat for homemade Mounds Bars. The story goes like this: I posted this recipe to my mom's Facebook wall early last week, and a few of my mom's friends commented that they'd like to try some too. One of the posters is a close family friend who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Who am I to keep these delectable treasures from a woman who is in dire need of chocolate? I decided to make them this weekend and carry them over for a visit sometime this week. Oh, and I made some for my mom as well!

What I used:
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 bags sweetened coconut
1 tsp sea salt
2 1/2 packages semi-sweet baking chocolate (yeah, a TON! I started off trying to use 10oz, but it wasn't enough)

What I did:
I combined the sweetened condensed milk, the coconut, and the sea salt in a large baking bowl. I mixed all of the ingredients together until they came to a thoroughly coated, sticky mixture. I spread the mixture into a 13x9 pan that was coated in tinfoil and cooking spray. That was my first mistake. The recipe I was using said to spread the mixture out in the pan with a spatula and press firmly into bars to freeze for 15 minutes and cut. I did all that. Either my mixture was too sticky or not frozen enough because my bars did not come out as bars...

When I took the pan out of the freezer and tried to cut the bars, I didn't like how they came out. I didn't think that these "candies" should look like brownies. I couldn't cut them as small as I wanted them because they weren't hard enough, so I just kind of sliced some rows to get the bars out. After I got some of the coconut mixture out of the pan, I tried to form it into Mounds-Bar-like heaps. I figured they looked pretty good, so I popped the chocolate in the microwave to melt. 

The Mounds Bar-ish form

When I tried to coat the little Mounds-Bar-like rolls in chocolate, I quickly saw that they were falling apart as soon as I dipped them. The coconut wasn't pressed hard enough, so the bars were just breaking with the weight and heat from the chocolate. I wanted the candies to come out like real Mounds bars, but mostly I just wanted them to come out.

I decided to try to hand-press the coconut mixture into balls. This worked for a few, but then I found that the coconut mixture was starting to soften, so I had to pop it back into the freezer.

Finally, after a few tries, I think I got it right. The coconut mixture had to be really tightly pressed and frozen--otherwise it'd just fall apart once it hit the chocolate. I spent a lot of time coating these candies. I've never used coconut as a main ingredient like this before, so this was all about trial-and-error. 

Just as a side note: as with any chocolate-coating recipe, I always line a baking sheet (or 2 in this case) with wax paper to place the candies on while they are hardening in the fridge. These sat in the fridge for about half an hour before I took them out to package them.

These are packaged in a little glass jar tied with a white ribbon.

A less fancy way that I package is by wrapping up in Saran wrap and creating a fountain effect. Then I tie a ribbon around the "fountain" and curl it. Simple, but it adds a nice touch.

Rating:

I would make these again now that I know how to do it best. From the tastes I had of the coconut mixture, I think they really do taste like Mounds Bars; they have that salty-sweet taste.

The real taste test will happen when I give these to our friend. Hope she likes them!