It's hot season in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand, and the mulberry tree in our garden is literally raining ripe, purple berries, every day. We're harvesting a nice bowl full EVERY day but with only 2 of us in our tiny family, we freeze some, make mulberry banana smoothies, freeze some more and think about creative ways to enjoy them.

So, this afternoon when we got home from our business, Miss 17 went out to pick the daily haul while I got busy in the kitchen.

Mulberry Coconut Shortbread Slice

This is a beginner level basic dish, and just such an awesome combination of buttery pastry with slightly tart JUICY mulberries, happily bleeding their juice into the coconut. Served warm with ice cream?? 😋

Mulberry Filling.

Make this first and set it aside.

• 1 medium bowl of fresh mulberries
• 1 cup dessicated coconut
• 1/2 cup raw sugar

Clean and wash and trim the mulberries. Best way to do that? Kitchen scissors.

Carefully mix and set aside.

The coconut will start beginning to plump up and soak in juices while you prepare the shortbread part.

Shortbread Base & Crumble

1 1/4 cups pure unsalted butter
1 cup raw sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon sugar
3 cups plain flour

First, gently melt your butter, being careful not to brown it. Let it cool ever so slightly.

In a bowl, place the raw sugar, egg yolks and salt...

and then slowly combine with the slightly cooled melted butter. Why cooled? What we don't want to do is cook the egg yolk!

Next we start working in the flour. After one cup, still very runny...

After the second cup?

With the third cup you want to be really careful NOT TO OVER MIX. I mostly used a knife blade to carefully cut and fold the mixture together whilst still maintainig a crumbly texture.

The divide your shortbread mix in half. Press half of it into a greased slice tin... and reserve the other half for your shortbread crumble topping.

Time to get creative!! Artfully spread your mulberry coconut filling over the pressed in shortbread base.

and then just as artfully carefully sprinkle the remaining crumble in such a way as to cover all the mulberries.

Bake in a moderate over at 350F (175C) for 50-60 minutes, checking regularly to make sure the crumble top does not over-brown.

Allow to cool in the tin, and then slice & serve.

ENJOY!!

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