Team Bake-Off

It is a coconut cake. I loved it so much that I made it 3 weeks in a row! It inspired me to have a team bake- off at work. Everyone in our team baked something, and then we all voted and picked a winner. We had loads of yummy goodies- carrot cake, cheesecake, tartlets, chocolate cake, lemon polenta cake and cupcakes.

So- to make the coconut cake: (I halved this recipe)

Ingredients:

1.5 cups cocounut milk
80g desiccated coconut, plus extra for sprinkling
190g butter
300g sugar
1 tsp almond essence
420g flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
free range egg whites, 3, beaten

For the icing, blend:
390g icing sugar, sifted
4-5 tbl spoons coconut milk
1 tsp almond essence

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Bring the coconut milk and coconut to a boil in a saucepan. Remove from the heat.

2. Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in the almond essence.

3. Stir the coconut milk mixture into the creamed butter and sugar mixture.

4. Sift the dry ingredients together. Fold into the batter, then lightly fold in the egg whites.

5. Grease two 20cm baking tins and pour a quarter of the prepared batter into each tin. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. Allow to cool, then remove from the tins and repeat with the remaining batter. Cool completely.

6. Use some icing to sandwich together the layers, and spread the rest over the top. Sprinkle with dessicated coconut.

Or pick up the May issue of Taste magazine and check out the recipe for yourself 🙂

xx
H