Birthday cake!

Here it is! Retro in all it's 70's beige loveliness! But bloody yummy :)

If you hadn't noticed, Mr B had a birthday. And in time honoured fashion, being married to a baker who loves to experiment with all kinds of cake, chose the same one he does every year. Coconut and vanilla. Ah well. It is a good'un. It's a slightly mongrelised recipe I have concocted over a few years, mainly inspired by the wonderous Nigella, but it produces a towering sugary sweet nutty wonder. I iced it with buttercream and piped with plain chocolate, but I think ganache would work beautifully as a filling / topping too.

Serves 10-12 (it is huge).

Grease and line 3 x 20cm / 8" sandwich tins (or 2 sandwich tins and a spare tin as I do!). Oven 170 fan.
Ingredients:
300g butter, softened
300g golden caster sugar
2 tsp actual vanilla extract with seeds and all
100g dessicated unsweetened coconut soaked in 225ml boiling water for about 10 mins
6 eggs
300g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cornflour

Method:
Cream butter and sugar together until it's really light and fluffy, then add the eggs until they're mixed in. It'll curdle. I don't care.

Mix in the vanilla, then dump the rest of the ingredients in together and beat it a bit until it's kind of smooth. It might still look curdly. I still don't care. Neither should you, trust me. By the way you add all the soaking water from the coconut too.

Divide it between the tins (not that I'm anal but I weigh it, about 500g each. Just over actually) and bake for 25 mins.

Then, to fill and ice, I made a whopping batch of vanilla buttercream (180g soft butter,  600g ish icing sugar, 50ml milk, 2 tsp vanilla schtuff with seeds, blitz like heck in a stand mixer with a cover on until light and dreamylicious) and spread over, under and around the cake. I then toasted some extra coconut and stuck it up the sides. With added glitter, obvs. It's a birthday cake. It needs glitter.

I'm sorry to your arteries. But your soul will thank me.

JB x

Baking around the world... Cambodia

This week saw this...

Cambodian coconut pound cake, also known as Num Tirk Doung. It's a dense-ish Madeira type cake made with coconut milk and shredded fresh coconut, along with a lot of vanilla extract! Safe to say, Mr B was a big fan.

Recipe for 1 loaf tin cake (I used a 2lb tin but you could probably for it into one)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup melted butter

4 medium eggs, beaten

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup coconut milk

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

2 tbs (yes, I know!) vanilla extract

1/2 cup shredded coconut (I used fresh, I'm sure dessicated unsweetened would work too)

Method:

1. Grease or line the tin, preheat oven to 160 (fan).

2. Mix the melted butter, sugar and eggs together until smooth and goopy.

3. Add the coconut milk and vanilla.

4. Add in the flour and baking powder and mix briefly, then stir through the coconut. 

5. Pour into the tin and bake for approx 1 hour until a skewer comes out clean.

The cake came out like a lovely moist buttery coconutty delight. It also lasted well wrapped in cling film. Me being me, I decided it would also be excellent with some icing (what cake isn't?!)... I'd probably do something with a bit of a bite like a lime glacé icing or a cream cheese frosting. 

Loved this with a cup of tea! 

Next stop... The Philippines x