I am still very much in love with fresh coconut, so this afternoon we baked one. The cake recipe from Carole Clements' Best Ever Baking seemed quite simple- whole eggs whisked with sugar until ribbon stage before the flour and flavourings are added. No butter, no baking powder, so bicarbonate. Also not much in the way of tenderiser, not surprisingly the cake turned out rather dry.
Which may have been the intention as we then had to layer it with a lovely lemon custard (can I call it a curd?) and slather more lemony buttercream frosting on it before covering the top and sides with fresh grated coconut, all of which gave the cake much needed flavour and elevated it into a luxuriant tea-time treat.
We packed a fair-sized wedge for our Saturday evening at Botanical Gardens where Rufus not only managed to steal a lick, when we weren't expecting it, he stole the leftovers, swallowing it faster than we could scream our futile protest.
