Mini Raffaello Pastries

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These unbelievably delicious coconut pastries are just melt in your mouth delicious, its like eating Raffaello candies, you can’t stop after just eating one. The ingredients are fairly simple and accessible, it is a bit time consuming to make though if you make them in small bite size pieces so do prepare to spend some time in the kitchen or have someone give you a hand if you wish.

The first time i made these and posted on social media, my DM’s were flooding with recipe requests. With the help of my sister, we made this post happen. This dessert is appealing to the eye especially when you style it with a fresh cracked coconut, it has been a very popular dessert style at dessert tables on weddings and parties since.

Ingredients:

Sheet cake

6 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1/2tsp Baking powder (Optional)

Cream

8oz Cream cheese (room temp)

1/2 can (14oz) Condensed milk

8oz Cool Whip

Filling & dredging

1/3 cup Crushed Roasted hazelnuts

7oz dry coconut flakes (Unsweetened)

Soak

1/2 cup of coconut milk

OR evaporated milk

OR Unsweetened black tea

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Instructions:

1. Into a stand mixer add 6 eggs and 1 cup of sugar. Whip on medium-low speed to incorporate the sugar and then bring up the speed to high and whip until the eggs turn pale and fluffy.
2. Set the mixer on STIR setting, gradually add 1 cup of flour, stopping periodically to scrape the sides with a spatula.
3. Line a 16″x 22″ baking sheet with parchment paper and transfer the batter onto the sheet spreading the batter equally all around the sheet. (If you do not have a big baking sheet like that you can divide batter onto 2 smaller baking sheets)
4. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until the top is golden brown or until toothpick comes out clean.
5. Once the cake cools, use a small round cutter to cut out the cake circles ( I use 1″ round cutter but you can use any size you want)
6. Lay out all the circles upside down and spray lightly with coconut milk or any of the 3 choices listed above.

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To make the cream:

1. Add 8oz of softened cream cheese into the mixer bowl and cream, then add 1/2 can of condensed milk and mix until combined, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as you mix.
2. Add 8oz of Cool whip and mix on low speed at first to incorporate, then bring up the speed and whip until semi stiff peeks form (about 5-8min)

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Prepare the filling and Dredging:

Place whole roasted hazelnuts in a zip-lock bag and beat with a meat mallet flat size down or a rolling pin to break them apart but still leaving them in big pieces. (If your hazelnuts are small you can also just place 1 half of the hazelnut and avoid crushing them)

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If you can’t already buy dry coconut flakes, you can buy shredded unsweetened flakes and pulse them in a food processor for a couple minutes until you have very small coconut crumbs. (Avoid using sweetened flakes as they are more sticky and might not crumb well, they’ll also make the pastries too sweet)

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Assemble the Pastries:

Using a piping bag, pipe a small dollop of cream onto EACH circle and add crushed hazelnuts on half of them.

Assemble the pastry by combining one side with hazelnuts and one side with just cream.

Dredge each pastry carefully in the remaining cream to cover all sides and then dredge in dry coconut flakes.

Refrigerate in an airtight container until ready to serve.

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If you make this recipe I’d love to see it. Tag @alenashomecooking on instagram and hashtag it #alenashomecooking or by clicking the social icons on top of this page.