This recipe is for docinhos de abobora, a famous Brazilian candy treat. Neither the Hub or I are fans of coconut, but my tasters at Discovery loved these goodies. In Brazil, most desserts are cakes, sweets or puddings, often with fruit or vegetables like carrot, corn, pumpkin and sweet potato. They also often contain nuts, coconut and/or chocolate. These are pumpkin, sugar and grated coconut, cooked and then rolled into balls and dusted with powdered sugar.
I copied and pasted this almost verbatim from another blog, but had the same experience with this recipe: "The biggest problem with this recipe was trying to measure the temperature of the mixture when cooking it, as the texture resembles mashed potatoes and has to be constantly stirred. A candy thermometer with a sensor would likely work much better than the 'stick the whole thing in the pan' model that I have. So, I may have stopped cooking too early because I was worried the thermometer was “lagging” behind due to the thickness of the mixture." Mine was also burning around the thermometer because I couldn't stir there.
