One of my favorite sweet when I was a kid was a Bukayo. It is sweet, kinda hard or a little crumbly, and has little chewyness in it too on the coconut meat part and it is really good, it is kinda like a candy. I used to buy some of that at school and you can get that just for one pesos back then. Sadly, we can't find Bukayo anymore in any sari sari store here in our area, I am not sure in other places though. Mommy F sells a Bukayo too before, she put them in a jar it will be given in a plastic but some prefer it without a plastic, especially for kids, just hand it to them and they will eat it immediately. She stop selling it a long time ago though and I am also not sure who is her supplier for that sweet.
I just discovered this before but making a Bukayo is actually really easy. And it doesn't require much ingredients, just two is all you need: sugar and coconut meat. It doesn't need water because the coconut flesh will provide for that, not a water though but oil. So here's the coconut meat we used. Mama open one coconut to make this sweets and that one big coconut last us for one day only hahahaha. I mean, it is so good that we can't help but to eat nonstop Lol. It's sweet but that sweetness is so addicting. OMG
So I help grating the coconut meat. We need a coconut strip to make it, that's originally the shape, thats the perfect shape actually.
There it is, we used matured coconut, but I head the macapuno is also good in making Bukayo. We haven't tried that yet, but I also love macapuno or coconut sport especially for halo-halo. This one has softer texture and it's sweet. Now I am craving for some macapuno na tuloy, lol.
So now that are two ingredients are ready, it's time to cook! Heat the pan and we'll caramelized some sugar. You can use different kind of sugar if you want that. We'll wait for it to caramelized
As for us we just used brown sugar. With that color it can give a pretty color to the Bukayo, brown is beautiful no? But that's the actual color of Bukayo, but if you want the white sugar the gooooow. Lol.
Once the sugar turns into liquid, we'll put next the coconut strips.
Mama keep in stirring it for the sugar to spread into the whole thing. I let mama do the stirring because you know, I already help with the grating ಥ‿ಥ. I also teased Mama here because why do it looks like a worm no? Hahahaha.
The cooking time took us 20 minutes, after that it's done. But you can cook it longer if you want that.
The original shape of a Bukayo is like of a round cookie. You can shape it while waiting for it to harden, but because it is Mom's version, we didn't do that and just eat it like some spaghetti. Lol. Swirl, swirl... 🍝. Hahaha
I requested to mama to put just a little sugar in it but I think you need more if you want it to look like a candy or harden it. And to harden it, the caramelized sugar needs to thicken. Cook it more until the sugar thicken, stir it of course so it wont stick to the pan and for it not to get burn. Once done, you can shape it into circle like a cookies.
Done ♪┌|∵|┘♪
Lead Image Edited in Canva