Kathrene Gayle’s delectable delights
Known for her delicious Easter buns and banana breads, Kathrene Gayle has in recent times taken her creative talent into the world of Jamaican confectionary, with emphasis on the coconut.
“I haven’t baked in years. I mostly use the stovetop now to make my coconut treats. Plus what I find is that the coconut is so easy to use. It’s versatile, nutritious and everybody likes it. Really, it is a great ingredient to work with,” she told All Woman.
Jamaicans love coconut, and Gayle knows this. And so from coconut drops to grater cake, she works the fruit to make her absolutely delectable treats.
“The hardest part for me is actually shelling the coconut but I do have help. I could not do it all by myself,” she said.
Gayle’s coconut pops, also known as ‘flavoured grater cake minis, come in different shapes, colours and flavours.
“We have as many as nine flavours of our signature coconut pops and yes, rum is included. We have different shapes — star, dome, heart, flower and even teddy bear shapes. We call them ‘pops’ because you can literally pop one in your mouth. And we understand that presentation is half of what the food industry is all about so that also plays a big part in our decision.”
Growing up, Gayle had no idea she would be doing what she is doing now.
“I wanted to be several things,” she laughed.
“I grew up in a church where women didn’t wear pants and so I wanted to be a gas station attendant because the female gas attendants were allowed to wear pants.”
She said she also wanted to be a lawyer, a nurse, a meteorologist, a set designer and a writer at different points in her life.
She finally settled in the media industry and solidified that decision graduating with honours from Carimac, UWI.
She moved on to CPTC and TVJ, developing, producing and directing children and adult programmes.
Gayle said that she found that with writing, producing and directing quality programming across multiple electronic platforms, she was able to feed her need to be creative.
It was through experimenting that she was able to perfect her coconut recipe and add her own little twist to a Jamaican favourite.
“My niece, who was 10 years old at the time, and I were having fun in the kitchen. We decided to make grater cake for the first time, but we also wanted to make them into shapes. But at that time it didn’t work. Eventually we figured out a solution, added the flavour concept, made them into minis and … yeah! That worked, everybody loved it.”
After countless conversations with family, friends and colleagues, Gayle decided to add a line of mini fudge (using an old family recipe) and mini coconut drops creations.
The acronym for her line, GRACES, means grabable coconut edible sweets, and is the name of the line of products provided by Team Tropix Ltd, the family owned company.
“I chose this name for two reasons. The first is to pay homage to the Father up above for His grace towards us. My family and I recognise that if it were not for His grace we would not be where we are today.”
Her second reason revolved around coconuts.
“I wanted the name of our product to reflect not only coconuts, but also our mission which is to make products which are easy to consume, hence the use of the term grabable.”
