Lemon custard coconut cake

One thing that always makes the daily grind of going to work a little easier is the prospect of a treat for morning or afternoon tea. At one of my workplaces, we used to have a roster for morning tea each Friday, where the two people rostered on brought in morning tea for everyone else. It was a great idea, but the system was often a little lopsided, because some people went to a great deal of effort (or at least, their wives on their behalf did!), while others forgot altogether, or simply handed their morning tea partner $20 to do it all for them.

I have always dabbled in a little bit of baking, but it is only in the last 3 years that I have really gotten into it, and I think that I would suffer withdrawal symptoms if I had to stop now. The work morning tea tradition gives me a great outlet to continue my baking without everything going to waste, and at the same time, it brings others pleasure (well, at least sometimes!).

This week, I baked the work crew a lemon custard coconut cake. The recipe came from one of the Australian women's magazines - I am not sure which one, as I had scrawled the recipe down on a piece of notepaper.

I had made this cake once before in "another life", and I had helpfully scribbled in pencil in the margin of the recipe that I needed to line the pan because this cake is a "sticker". I had also noted that it takes a good 20 minutes longer to bake than the recipe says and lo, it was true, even though I used a different oven this time. It was great to have a "helping hand" from the past to guide me through the traps.

This is a delicious cake, provided of course that you like lemon and coconut flavours. It is also dead easy to make (if you grease and line your pan!!!) because there is no creaming of butter and sugar etc - you literally plonk everything in, stir it up and you're away. The cake is a lovely yellow colour because it contains custard powder - hence the custard part of the cake. (There is no custard filling in it.)




To make it, you will need:

1 1/4 cups self raising flour
1/4 cup custard powder
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup dessicated cococnut
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 cup milk
120g melted butter
2 eggs

and for the icing:

1 1/4 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
shredded coconut to decorate

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius and grease and line the base of a 20cm round cake tin.

Sift the flour and custard powder together, then add the sugar, coconut and zest and combine. Add the butter, milk and eggs, and beat until smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared cake tin, and bake until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. (Both times, this cake took 55 minutes for me; the recipe says 35-40 minutes!).

Cool the cake in its tin for roughly 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to coool completely.

Once cool, make the icing by sifting the icing sugar and combining it with the juice and zest in a small heatproof bowl. Stir this mixture in the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until it is of a spreadable/pourable consistency, and spread over the top of the cake. (I found that there was only enough icing for the top, and that you have to work quickly, as this icing sets fast.) Decorate the top of the iced cake with shredded coconut. Enjoy!