Coconut cake with lemon cream cheese filling

Here’s a cake I made a few weeks ago in honour of my sister-in-law, who told me a while back that she really likes lemony, coconutty cakes: a coconut cake with a lemon cream cheese filling.

I’ve made a three-layer version of this before, but I wanted something less faffy (and less likely to topple over), so I combined the filling from that recipe with my usual coconut cake sponge recipe to bring it down to two layers.

The filling is really quite something – I bought the lemon curd, but if you’re happy to make it from scratch, then I suspect it’d be even better! The sharpness of the lemon against the unnnngggh-ness (yes, that’s a word) of the full-fat soft cheese is truly delicious!

I only used the zest of one lemon in the sponges and couldn’t really taste it, so I’ve recommended two lemons in my recipe below.

I assembled this on a really hot day and it started to droop a bit after a few hours, so make sure you eat it up very quickly if you also make it for a special summer occasion… which I’m pretty sure won’t be a problem!

Coconut cake with lemon cream cheese filling recipe

Serves 10

For the sponge layers:

• 175g softened butter
• 175g caster sugar
• 175g self raising flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 75g dessicated coconut
• 2 tbsp coconut cream (I used Patak’s coconut cream, which comes in sachets)
• finely grated zest of two lemons

For the filling:

• 75g unsalted butter
• 75g icing sugar
• 200g soft cheese
• one-quarter tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 100g good quality lemon curd

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Butter and line the base of two 20 cm/8 inch sandwich tins with greaseproof paper.
2. Mix the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs for 2-3 minutes until smooth. Gently stir in the dessicated coconut, coconut cream and lemon zest.
3. Divide the mixture between the two tins and smooth the tops. Bake for 20-25 minutes until evenly golden and firm.
4. Loosen the edges and leave the tins to cool for 5 minutes and then transfer on to a wire rack to cool. Peel off the lining paper.
5. For the filling, beat together the butter and icing sugar, then beat in the soft cheese, vanilla and lemon juice.
6. Sandwich the cakes with the lemon curd and cream cheese filling. Sift a little icing sugar on top and serve.

 

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Coconut and cardamom cake with mango cream cheese filling

I’ve been thinking about making this coconut and cardamom cake with mango cream cheese icing for a while. It’s basically my trusty mango and coconut cake with some cardamom added to the cake mix, but that one extra ingredient really does transform the cake into something else entirely! It’s Indian mango season at the moment, which meant that I could use the most delicious mango in this recipe.

Funnily enough, just when I decided to make it, I also ended up acquiring the new recipe book from GBBO’s Chetna Makan, who, as is well documented on this blog, is one of my favourite GBBO contestants EVER. There’s a mango, coconut and cardamom cake early on in The Cardamom Trail, which must mean that we’re kindred spirits, right?! However, Chetna’s cake is much more impressive-looking than mine, although I suspect that they taste very similar!

Anyway, back to my cake. It was all very straightforward to make. I did end up with runny cream cheese icing again, but that meant I had an excellent excuse to use only as much as would fill the cake without it running over the sides and, er, safely disposing of the rest. In my stomach. I think I might try making the icing with mascarpone next time to see if it comes out any thicker!

Coconut and cardamom cake with mango cream cheese filling recipe

Serves 10

For the sponge layers:

• 175g/6oz softened butter
• 175g/6oz caster sugar
• 175g/6oz self raising flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 75g/2oz dessicated coconut
• 2 tbsp coconut cream (I used Patak’s coconut cream, which comes in sachets)
• 0.5 tsp ground cardamom (equivalent to the seeds of about 6-7 green cardamom pods)

For the filling:

• 100g soft cheese (or try mascarpone!)
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 50g icing sugar, plus extra for dusting
• 0.5 medium, ripe mango

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Butter and line the base of two 20 cm/8 inch sandwich tins with greaseproof paper.
2. Mix the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and eggs for 2-3 minutes until smooth. Gently stir in the dessicated coconut, coconut cream and cardamom.
3. Divide the mixture between the two tins and smooth the tops. Bake for 20-25 minutes until evenly golden and firm.
4. Loosen the edges and leave the tins to cool for 5 minutes and then transfer on to a wire rack to cool. Peel off the lining paper.
5. Peel the mango, slice it away from the stone and chop into smaller chunks. Mash it to a pulp (you can use a food processor for a fine texture or a potato masher/fork for a chunkier one).
6. Beat together the other filling ingredients and then stir in the mango.
7. Spread one of the sponge layers with the filling and place the other on top. Dust with icing sugar and serve.

Honey buns

I received an unexpected Amazon voucher from work a few weeks ago. I don’t really buy books from Amazon any more, simply because I would rather support actual bookshops, but I thought it would be rude not to indulge just this once! I got quite a few baking books, including Paul Hollywood’s British Baking, which contains this rather fine recipe for honey buns (you can find it online here).

Despite the name, these aren’t the yeasted variety of buns; they’re more like mini cakes. As you might expect, there’s a fair bit of honey in both the cakes themselves and the wonderfully sticky cream cheese icing. The cakes also contain chopped pecans and cinnamon.

The cakes were very straightforward to make. The only issue I had was trying to divide the mix equally between 18 cases, when I could only bake them in batches of 12! As a result, I ended up with some buns that were much bigger or smaller than the others.

The icing was also really easy to make, although I suspect mine was a little runnier than it should have been. For once, I seemed to make the right amount of icing and didn’t end up with any left over, which is always nice. I ran out of pecans after making the cakes, so I topped the honey buns with walnut halves instead.

I had two of the buns straight away, and was very pleased with how they turned out. The cakes themselves were lovely – spicy but with a strong honey flavour. The icing was delicious, too – I almost wished there had been some left over so I could have eaten it from the bowl with a spoon!

This is a brilliant little recipe and one I would highly recommend. It’s worth investing in some good quality honey for baking purposes, but I managed to make these with supermarket own-brand honey and it was perfectly fine. I’d love to try making these again with orange blossom honey or another flavoured honey – I suspect they’d be divine!

First bake: chocolate orange cake with cream cheese icing

I was recently alerted to the launch of something amazing by Asda – chocolate orange cream cheese. Being a fan of the wonderful Philadelphia-Cadbury lovechild that is chocolate cream cheese, I couldn’t wait to get this wonderful concoction and do something baking-related with it.

I briefly considered a chocolate orange cheesecake, but I don’t have a great track record with cheesecake in general, so I settled on a decadent chocolate orange layer cake with chocolate orange cream cheese icing instead. You can already feel the calories piling on just by reading that, can’t you?

I used a Mary Berry recipe for the sponges. Strangely enough, this was my first attempt at a Mary Berry recipe, despite being a huge GBBO fan. Suffice to say, the cakes turned out wonderfully!

Chocolate orange cake mix

I let the cakes cool overnight then made a simple icing by beating together the chocolate orange cream cheese, icing sugar and butter. I sandwiched the cakes together with half of the icing then spread the rest on top, and decorated it with some segments of a dark chocolate orange to finish it off.

I couldn’t wait to try the finished cake! I have to say, it was absolutely amazing – the sponge was moist and flavoursome, while the icing was simply wonderful. I wouldn’t say the chocolate orange flavour of the cream cheese was particularly strong, but it was definitely there, and the richness of the cheese provided a wonderful contrast to all the sugar and cocoa.

I would most certainly make this again without changing anything – I just hope Asda keep this cream cheese in production for a good while longer!

The recipe

For the sponges, follow Mary Berry’s recipe for chocolate orange cake. You can either use her filling or my own, below:

• 200g pack of chocolate orange cream cheese, available from Asda (or make your own with normal cream cheese, cocoa and orange zest or flavouring)
• 40g icing sugar, sifted
• 100g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1. Beat together the sugar and butter until smooth, then stir in the cream cheese and mix well.