I bought a pot of buttermilk last week with the intention of making a loaf of Irish soda bread. After spending the last few days eating the sourdough burger buns I’d baked, we were all breaded out!
Rather than allow the buttermilk to reach it’s ‘best before’ date, I used it to make a coconut buttermilk pound cake.
I found the perfect recipe on the Martha Stewart website – I already had all the ingredients in the kitchen.
Sometimes, on an online recipe, the comments made by people who have tried out the recipe are hugely useful. A couple of people stated that the size of the loaf tin recommended wasn’t big enough and they had left over batter. Because of this, I used my largest loaf tin – 19 x 15 x 10cm (8 x 6 x 4-inch). This was probably a bit to big – a smaller one would have sufficed.
Martha Stewart’s original recipe uses sweetened, shredded coconut however, dessicated coconut is easier to get hold of in the supermarket here in the UK. Dessicated is much finer than shredded, so I altered the recipe slightly.
It’s not often that there’s a ‘how to’ video of a recipe available – the one I embedded at the bottom of the post shows just how easy this recipe is.
Click here to save it to Pinterest for later – you won’t be disappointed!
- 170g/6oz butter, softened
- 170g/6oz caster sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 240g/8½oz plain flour
- 1½tsp baking powder
- 1tsp salt
- 240ml/8fl oz buttermilk
- 75g/2⅔oz dessicated coconut, toasted
- 2tbsp buttermilk
- 125g icing sugar
- 1tbsp dessicated coconut, toasted
- Preheat the oven to 175ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
- Grease a 12 x 22cm (4½ x 8½-inch) loaf tin
- In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and caster sugar until light and fluffy
- In a small measuring jug, lightly whisk the eggs
- Add vanilla, then the beaten eggs, combining well
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt
- Carefully add the flour to the mixture in 3 additions, alternating with two additions of buttermilk. Combine well
- Using a silicone spatula, fold in the 75g of toasted, dessicated coconut
- Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 60 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes away clean
- Allow the cake to cool in its tin on a wire rack for about an hour
- Remove the cake from the tin and allow to cool completely
- Whisk together the icing sugar and 2 tbsp buttermilk making sure there are no lumps
- Drizzle over the cake and sprinkle with tablespoon of dessicated coconut
