Stawberry coconut cake

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Its been continuous blogging for ten days by now and it was all under one common theme: baking.

To make life easy for me, I decided to do celebration cakes for the first week. The second week was for simple ‘naked’ cakes. One celebration cake from first week spilled over to the 2nd, but otherwise I have been able to stick to some pattern.

The simple cakes for 2nd week all happened to be fruit based as well. The first two recipes were dry fruit-ish, the next two were banana based. The last recipe had to be a little different from the others. So here it is: a bright red strawberry cake!

I had picked up a pack of sweetened coconut flakes while shopping and had no idea whatsoever to do with it. This cake came as a solution when I saw this in Martha Stewart’s book : Cakes. So, my dilemma with sweetened coconut flakes got over partially. But the next time I am baking this cake, I would skip the coconut. It was a new taste and it needs sometime to get used to it.

Watch this space for a week of savory bakes next week. But if you are still looking for something sweet, scroll down for the recipe for a lemony- coconutty-strawberry-cake.

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Recipe source: Martha Stewart’s book: Cakes 

Ingredients:

  • 1 3/4 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • a pinch salt
  • 1 cup packed sweetened shredded coconut (optional)
  • 3/4 cup butter (~160 gm)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk
  • 2 tsp grated lime/lemon zest
  • 2 tbsp lime/ lemon juice
  • 3 cups berries of your choice (blue berries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, cranberries etc)*
  • 3 tbsp orange juice
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 tbsp flour

*I had only strawberries, so that is what I have used

Method:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Grease and dust with flour a 9X13″ baking dish. I used a big pie dish that I had.
  2. Whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and coconut(if using) together.
  3. Beat butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. you can use a hand/stand mixer for this.
  4. Add the eggs, one at a time and beat it in.
  5. Add flour in 3 batches, alternating with 2 batches of buttermilk. Mix after each addition.
  6. Stir in the lemon zest and juice. Pour the batter into the baking dish and smooth out the top.
  7. In a separate bowl, tpss the berries with 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tbsp flour and 3 tbsp orange juice.**
  8. Scatter this mix evenly on top of the cake batter.
  9. Bake for about 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out free of crumbs when inserted in the middle.
  10. Let it cool before slicing and serving.

**I found that the berry mix were too watery because of  the combined action of oranges and sugar. I might be skipping it or reducing the amount the next time. Yes, I am sure there will be a next time for this cake.

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This post goes to Blogging Marathon. This month’s theme is baking.

Week 1, celebration cakes:

  1. Ponque : A pound cake from Puerto Rico
  2. Tres Leches – Three milk cake
  3. Ombre cake
  4. Sofa cake using eggless vanilla cake

Week 2, fruit based cakes (except day 1):

  1. Chocolate cake
  2. Eggless Fruit cake with buttermilk
  3. Eggless fruit cake
  4. Caramel Banana cake
  5. Easy banana cake
  6. Berry cake with lemon

20 thoughts on “Stawberry coconut cake”

  7. Rajani, this one look so inviting and colourful..Enjoyed reading all your bakes..and how each fell into a pattern!..and I am looking forward for the savory bakes..I love those best..

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  12. Very unusual combo! Am wondering how it would have tasted! anyways, the cakes looks so good with those strawberries on top!

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  13. very vibrant looking cake… some of my cakes do turn out like that – with an extra dash of liquid. but we like it a lil more moist than the commercially available dryish cakes..coconut and strawberry is a very unusual combo, and yes, coconut in bakes do take a bit getting used to…

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  18. Excellent cake, incidentally even I have a strawberry cake for today, but poles apart. This cake looks delicious and coconut must have enhanced the flavor. Very well presented , wonderful collection.

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