Coconut cake

It's not often that Al says that he fancies a bit of cake. He's not a cake eater in general and doesn't really request baked goods either. I was quite surprised when he said that he wanted some cake but, so as not to lose a chance to bake, I passed him a recipe book and got him to choose what he wanted. Coconut cake.



It was a simple coconut sponge with a buttercream on top and in between. It was very easy to make and meant that I could purchase some new sandwich tins (my old ones are rubbish!). The recipe said that you should mix the ingredients in a food processor but I don't have one. My trusty hand mixer with normal beater attachments seemed to do the job very well. We also missed out the raspberry jam filling as we didn't have any. Al thought that cherry jam might be nice next time.



Ingredients
175g/6oz softened butter
175g/6oz caster sugar
175g/6oz self raising flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
3 eggs, beaten
50g/2oz dessicated coconut
2tbsp coconut cream or single cream (I used milk as it's all I had to hand)

For the buttercream
280g/10oz icing sugar
100g/4oz softened butter
3tbsp coconut cream or single cream (I used milk again...)
1-2 tsps of vanilla extract
5 tbsp raspberry (or cherry) jam

Preheat the oven to 180C. Butter and line the base of two 20cm/8inch sandwich tins with greaseproof paper.
Mix the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs in a food processor for 2-3 minutes until smooth. Gently stir in the coconut and cream.
Divide the mixture between the two tins and smooth the tops. Bake for 20-25 minutes until evenly golden and firm. Loosen the edges and leave the tins to cool for 5 minutes and then transfer onto a wire rack to cool. Peel off the lining paper.
To make the buttercream; beat together all the ingredients unbtil smooth. Spread one sponge with the jam and the other with just under half of the buttercream and sandwich together. Spread the rest of the buttercream onto the top of the cake and enjoy.

This recipe is from the BBC Good Food magazine book 101 Cakes and Bakes.