Coconut cake

Happy birthday CCM!



There are three flavours the CCM (Caked Crusader’s Ma) loves in a cake: coconut, lemon and coffee. Of these three, the only one I like is coconut. Rather surprisingly, I chose coconut as the feature ingredient for the CCM’s birthday cake? Who’d have thought?

The coconut sponges looked beautiful on their own.....I'm starting to think that I find cake waaaaaay too alluring...


....even before they were teamed up with the coconut cream icing and jam:


While I don’t agree with all the CCM’s choice of flavours I do agree with her choice of TV eye candy and had no problem buying a cake topper to please her. One of her current favourites is David Tennant – how do I know this? Well, my Casanova (forget the rubbish film – this is the version you want) and Blackpool (where he plays a pastry obsessed policeman – can TV get any better???) DVDs have been borrowed and digested and I’ve even heard her commenting on Dr Who (as the CCM doesn’t like sci-fi this is perhaps the biggest clue). So, not only a coconut cake but with David Tennant wishing her happy birthday – what more could the CCM want?

I purchased my cake toppers from Icing Toppers. They have a selection of popular characters but you can also design your own. It did amuse me that the sample David Tennant one on the site was for Dr Who fan Jason (aged 12) – just a few years younger than the CCM!

The cake was very crumbly which contrasted beautifully with the thick smooth buttercream – a match made in heaven:


This extreme close up highlights the texture:


What interested me about this recipe was the use of coconut cream as well as desiccated coconut. I have never used coconut cream before and was unable to find it in my local supermarket. Instead I bought a block of creamed coconut and followed the instructions on the packet to make it into coconut cream – basically just diluting it. This cake had a more intense coconut flavour than other coconut cakes I have made. I particularly liked the creamy icing.

One thing I would say is that when spooned into the tins for baking it doesn’t look like there’s enough cake batter and I fretted that I would be presenting the CCM with a birthday Frisbee (albeit a Frisbee with David Tennant on it – how bad could that be?). It rose considerably in the oven and you can see from the photos the lovely depth. So don’t panic that you haven’t got enough mix!

The CCM is a sentimental old coot – look at the piece of cake she’s held off cutting until absolutely necessary!


Ingredients:

For the cake:

175g unsalted butter
175g golden caster sugar
3 eggs
175g self raising flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon nutmeg
55g desiccated coconut
2 tablespoons coconut cream (or creamed coconut turned into coconut cream following instructions on packet)

For the icing:

280g icing sugar
105g unsalted butter
3 tablespoons coconut cream
5 tablespoons jam (I used raspberry but any flavour would work)

For decoration:
Toasted shredded coconut (I couldn’t find this so sprinkled some desiccated coconut)

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Grease and line two 20cm round deep sandwich tins.
- First make the cake. Place the butter and golden caster sugar in a bowl and cream until light and fluffy.
- Beat in the eggs, flour, baking powder, and nutmeg until smooth.
- Stir in the desiccated coconut and coconut cream.
- Spoon the mixture evenly between the two sandwich tins and level the surface.
- Bake for approximately 25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Mine took 32 minutes.
- Leave to cool in the tins for 10 minutes or until just cool enough to turn out. Leave to cool totally on a wire rack.
- Now make the icing. Sift the icing sugar into a bowl and add the butter and coconut cream. Beat together until smooth.
- Spread the jam on top of one of the sponges. Top the jam with just under half the buttercream icing.
- Place the other sponge on top and spread the remaining icing on top of the cake.
- Sprinkle with toasted coconut (or desiccated).
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.