This year I turned 30! I’m not big on birthday parties, but as 30 is a significant age, I decided to throw a little tea party. High tea is my favourite thing ever, so it’s not surprise that a tea party was my choice for this shindig! I spent a week baking all the little treats for the party but the cake for me was the big deal. I wanted to make a cake I’ve never made before. I wanted it to be something different to my regular chocolate or carrot cake. Y’all know how much I love The Caker, so I sought inspiration from her book. This cake recipe is hers, however I did my own frosting.
I promised to share with you my birthday cake recipe so here it is. This cake for me is perfect. It is tart and sweet and the texture from the coconut is heavenly. Really, what more could you want from a cake. Y'all know I love my fruit in my cakes and NZ Black Doris Plums are to die for! Some of you may have cotton on by now that I'm not a fan of food colouring. Like have you ever wondered what some of them are made of? I'm pretty sure red food colouring is made from crushed up insects. Yep, definitely not for me. I like to use flavour to colour things in my baking. In this instance i'm using the plum syrup from my tin of plums in my frosting. It adds colour and flavour at the same time.
Now, this is a big cake! It's three layers and can feed about 20 people. Luckily the recipe can be divided by three so you can simply make the one cake if your heart desires.
Plum, Lime and Coconut Cake
Serves 20-25
300g butter, softened
300g sugar
2 tsp vanilla
6 eggs
200g standard flour
60g almond meal (sub with flour if you don’t have any)
140g desiccated coconut (you can also use coconut thread if you prefer)
4 tsp baking powder
260g Greek yoghurt
4 limes, zested and juiced
8-10 plums, stones removed (I used an 800g tin of Black Doris plums)
Frosting
500g cream cheese
1/4 - 1/2 cup Maple Syrup depending on how sweet you want it
4-5 Tbs Plum Syrup depending on the colour you want
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Line three 8” tins and set aside. You could use a bigger tin if you want thinner layers.
In a medium sized bowl, combine your flour, ground almonds, coconut and baking powder. Give it a toss to combine. Set bowl of dry ingredients aside.
In a small bowl combine the Greek yoghurt, lime zest and lime juice. Mix to combine. Set bowl aside.
Now in a third bowl, of medium size, cream your butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. you can do this in a mixer if you prefer, or use a hand mixer if that’s what you have on hand. Add the vanilla and eggs one at a time while beating between additions.
Now we add the wet and dry ingredients to this in two additions. So first add half of your flour mixture and half of your yoghurt mixture. Beat to combine. Then add the remaining flour and yoghurt mixtures and give a final beat. Don’t over mix as it will result in a tough cake.
Divide your batter between your three tins. Push in your plum halves into the batter of each tin and pop in the oven to bake for about 40 minutes. Check for done-ness with a skewer. The cakes should be slightly springy when done. Allow the cakes to cool in their tins for 10 minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack. Leave to cool completely before frosting.
To make the frosting simple beat the softened cream cheese until it is smooth. Slowly add in your maple and plum syrup and keep beating. Taste the frosting unto you’ve reached the desired taste. Pop it in the fridge to firm up while your cakes cool.
When you’re ready to assemble simple give the frosting another quick beat to loosen it up. Place some frosting on a cake board, then pop on the first layer of cake. I use a cookie scoop to pop on about three scoops of frosting between each layer and then use the remaining to coat the outside of the cake. You can do what you like. Decorate the cake with the leftover syrup and flowers. Serve and enjoy!
The table!
I swear I didn’t eat the entire cake myself!