Inspiration for our weekly Cakes & Bakes posts come from all manner of places. This week’s was slightly out of the ordinary – a scrap of crumpled old paper with Justin’s handwriting on it, that fell out of a book whilst we were tidying some shelves.
He’d jotted down a recipe for a coconut and lime cake. I showed it to him but he couldn’t remember doing it or where he’d, in fact, copied it from; I guessed it might have been an episode of a Rachel Allen cookery program from years ago maybe. I’m probably wrong!
The notes he made were pretty vague. The instructions read thus: “Mix all ingredients together. Bake in cake tins. Gas Mark 3 → 30-35 mins”.
Delia’s All-in-one sponge method is pretty similar; however, with the addition of lime juice, I thought that the mixture would be prone to curdling if I just chucked it all in together. In the end, I did the classic creaming of the butter & sugar, adding the eggs (pre-beaten) a little at a time interspersed with a serving spoon of the flour, then the juice, followed by the sifted flour/baking powder and dessicated coconut.
The other thing I did differently was to use a single cake tin instead of dividing the mixture equally between two. I merely upped the cook time from 30 minutes to an hour, keeping the temperature the same. Sometimes I prefer to simply slice the one cake horizontally through the middle; I find that it sandwiches back together better after spreading the icing.
Oh, and I didn’t have any coconut milk powder (the original recipe calls for 2 tablespoons) – I substituted it with powdered skimmed milk and a little coconut extract. It worked for me!
Finally, I decided against the water icing topping and went instead for a butter icing. I think it turned out brilliantly. It’s an attractive, ‘summery’ looking cake. The combination of coconut and lime is a well established cooking classic – sweet, yet zingy. I can vouch for the fact that it works really well in this sponge cake manifestation!
Click here to save the recipe to Pinterest
Coconut and lime cake
Ingredients
For the cake
- 170 g/6oz butter softened
- 170 g/6oz caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- juice of 2 limes
- 170 g/6oz self-raising flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 60 g/2oz dessicated coconut
For the icing
- 285 g/10oz icing sugar powdered sugar
- 50 g/1¾oz butter softened
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- Zest of 2 limes
Instructions
For the cake
- Preheat the oven to 160ºC/325ºF/Gas mark 3
- Grease and line a 15cm/6" loose-bottomed cake tin with baking parchment
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and the sugar
- In a measuring jug, lightly beat the eggs
- Pour the eggs into the butter/sugar mixture in 3 stages and mix in, with a serving spoon of the flour (to prevent curdling)
- Mix in the lime juice
- Fold in the dry ingredients (flour/baking powder/dessicated coconut)
- Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin, levelling out the surface
- Bake for 50 minutes to an hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes away clean
- Allow to cool in its tin for 5 minutes before removing it and letting it cool completely on a wire rack
For the icing
- Sift the icing sugar into a bowl to remove any lumps
- Add the butter and combine well
- Add the lime juice, a tablespoon at a time, until the required consistency is achieved
- Sprinkle over the lime zest and serve
