Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Coconut Sugar Cake
Chewy pink-and-white coconut candy set in ginger sugar syrup, a nostalgic Saint Kitts and Nevis sweet.
Kittitian · easy · serves 12
prep 10 min · cook 25 min
~346 cal · 2g protein · 43g carbs · 20g fat · 5g fiber · 38g sugars · 18g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Coconut sugar cake is an old-time sweet across Saint Kitts and Nevis and the wider Caribbean, the kind of treat sold outside schools and churches and made at home for the children. Despite the name, it is a candy, not a cake at all.
It is made by cooking grated coconut in a sugar syrup spiked with fresh ginger until the mixture thickens and the sugar begins to grain. Often half the batch is tinted pink with a little food colouring, so the finished pieces come in cheerful pink and white.
Dropped in spoonfuls to set into chewy, craggy mounds, it is intensely sweet, fragrant with ginger, and gloriously nostalgic. A piece of coconut sugar cake is a small, sticky taste of a Kittitian childhood.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 12
3 cups grated coconut
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp fresh ginger, grated
1 tsp mixed essence or vanilla extract
a pinch ground cinnamon
1 bay leaf
a few drops pink food colouring (optional)
Instructions
1
Simmer the sugar, water, grated ginger and bay leaf until the sugar dissolves into a light syrup and small pearl-sized bubbles form.
2
Add the grated coconut with the cinnamon and mixed essence and cook, stirring, until the mixture thickens and pulls away from the sides of the pan.
3
Keep cooking until the syrup begins to grain and the mixture pulls together, tinting half of it pink if you like.
✎ Chef’s note
Watch for the moment the glossy syrup turns cloudy and grainy, that graining is what sets the candy. Pull it off right then.
4
Beat the mixture with a spoon for a couple of minutes, then drop spoonfuls onto a greased tray, parchment or a banana leaf and leave to set firm.
✎ Chef’s note
Beating it off the heat before you shape it is what gives sugar cake its set. Versions of this candy exist across the Caribbean under other names: tablet in Haiti, coconut ice in Grenada.
Kittitian old-time-sweet tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Basseterre. Basseterre slow-cooks goat water at weekends, a thick goat stew with breadfruit and papaya, seasoned with clove and thickened toward gravy. Saint Kitts and Nevis cooking runs on saltfish, dumplings, and the ubiquitous pepper sauce.
🗺️
Saint Kitts and Nevis. Saint Kitts and Nevis calls stewed saltfish with dumplings and breadfruit its national dish, alongside goat water stew. African and British roots meet over seafood and ground provisions.
🌍
North America. Almost every regional cooking here records who arrived and on what terms. Enslaved West Africans brought rice, okra, black-eyed peas and the techniques behind Lowcountry and Creole food; Chinese railway labour and later Italian, Jewish, Mexican and Vietnamese arrivals built the way the cities eat; and Indigenous foodways sit underneath all of it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Saint Kitts and Nevis
Goat WaterA rich, spiced goat stew thickened with breadfruit or flour and scented with clove and rum, the Saturday pot.
Stewed Saltfish with DumplingsSalt cod stewed down with tomato, onion, and pepper, served with boiled dumplings and ground provisions, the national breakfast of St. Kitts.
Conch SouseTender boiled conch pickled in a cool, bright broth of lime, onion, cucumber, and scotch bonnet, a St Kitts weekend favorite.
Browse all Saint Kitts and Nevis recipes →
Good to know
Storing it: Keep chilled and covered, and enjoy within 2 to 3 days.
Make it a Saint Kitts and Nevis meal
Goat WaterDinner
Kittitian SorrelDrink
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Frequently asked questions
What is Coconut Sugar Cake?
Chewy pink-and-white coconut candy set in ginger sugar syrup, a nostalgic Saint Kitts and Nevis sweet.
Where does Coconut Sugar Cake come from?
Coconut Sugar Cake is a Kittitian dish from Basseterre, Saint Kitts and Nevis.
Can Coconut Sugar Cake be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Coconut Sugar Cake recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Coconut Sugar Cake safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Coconut Sugar Cake take to make?
About 35 minutes total (10 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 12.
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