Today I would like to present to you my rationale for baking: ladies and gentlemen, please inspect the following photograph:
You see that girl in the blue t-shirt on the right hand side of the frame? Yes, that’s right, the sweaty one with the crazy hair and the unfortunate straining expression. That would be me, pumping up a kite. Eventually that big green thing will inflate and end up like the big red thing on the left hand side of the picture. (Then I will attach 23 metre thin cables to it, attach the other end of the cables to a harness, and attach the harness around my waist. Thus trussed, I will enter the open sea balancing on a sort of snowboard with fins and get pulled along/up/face-down-into-the-water by the kite. Kiteboarding is a RIDICULOUS sport, but very, very fun.)
Anyway, it takes 120 strokes of the pump to inflate that kite properly, because I counted yesterday between puffs and pretending like I wasn’t about to keel over. That’s like doing 120 squats, with weights. And that’s before you even start doing any actual sport, and normally I’m then in the water for two hours. This should go some way to explain a) the resemblance of my thighs to those of a Lithuanian shotputter and b) why I need cake. Lots of cake.
This is another hit from Dan Lepard’s back catalogue in the Guardian – I was instantly convinced to try it at the ingredients entry that stated “Cointreau” (and yes, alcoholic cake batter can get you drunk if you are as much of a lightweight as I am. Wahey!). Zest in the orange icing and the batter as well as fresh orange juice make this a triple play of orangey flavour. And, like ground almonds, the coconut seems to keep the cake moist, meaning that it’s still delectable after four days. I’m going kiteboarding this afternoon though, so I don’t think we’ll get to five.
Triple orange coconut cake
Makes a two layer 6 inch cake. Adapted from Dan Lepard in the Guardian
Ingredients
- 2 medium oranges
- 105g unsalted butter at room temp
- 105g caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 30g dessicated coconut
- 90g AP / plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 45ml Cointreau
- 75g icing sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180˚C and line the base of two 6″/14cm cake tins.
- Cream butter, sugar and the zest of one of the oranges in a bowl until pale.
- Sift the flour and baking powder into another bowl.
- Lightly beat the eggs together in yet another bowl and add these a little at a time to the butter mixture with a heaped tsp of the flour mixture. Beat well before adding the next portion.
- Then beat in the coconut and Cointreau.
- Finally fold in the flour.
- Spoon into the prepared tins and bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove to a wire rack to cool completely before icing. Mix the icing sugar, the zest of the remaining orange and enough freshly squeezed orange juice to make a spreadable consistency. Use this glaze to ice the top of one cake, then sandwich the other cake on top and ice the top of that too. Aim for casual but elegant drippage.
Preparation time: 20 minute(s)
Cooking time: 20 minute(s)
Number of servings (yield): 6
Meal type: dessert
Culinary tradition: English
4 Comments on "Triple orange coconut cake"
yummy! and very summery. i love that the cake is nice and small too – i’m often wary of layered cakes because they end up so huge.
Hey thanks! Yes, I know – there’s only two of us at home and layer cakes don’t really travel that well to give them away to friends. Plus, being a complete recipe slut, small cakes mean I can experiment with more cakes in less time. Efficiency in greed is my motto!
Por favor , les agradesco me envien la receta en español de latorta de naranjas Muchas gracias
Sorry Carmen, my Spanish sucks! Can anyone else help? If not, try google translate, it’s normally ok for recipe words. Good luck!