VANILLA SPONGE WITH SHREDDED COCONUT TOPPING

I have an additional reason to look forward to birthdays these days. A birthday in the family would mean yet another cake post. 

My father in law, like my father, prefers vanilla cakes to chocolate and he doesn’t like frosting on his cake much. I couldn’t bake a plain vanilla for a birthday so I decided to make a Vanilla sponge with shredded coconut topping.

consistency of batter 

finished batter 

 I DO NOT LIKE COCONUT and neither does Skip nor Husband. And yet I went ahead and baked a coconut cake for the birthday, you would wonder? Well, for all the coconut haters out there, do not skip reading this post or baking this cake. The cake is light and airy (the vanilla sponge is not the same as in my previous recipe) and the coconut topping makes the cake moist in the middle and crunchy on top and bursting with sweet coco-nutty flavour. If you want, you could skip the topping and just bake the cake but I would really, really recommend that you make the topping too.

This recipe is adapted from Ria’s Collection.  It’s called the Lazy Daisy cake (I don’t know why).

VANILLA SPONGE WITH SHREDDED COCONUT TOPPING

Ingredients:

For the sponge

Eggs – 2

Sugar – 1 cup (or slightly lesser)

Plain flour – 1 cup

Baking powder- 1 tsp

Milk – ½ cup

Butter – 1 ½ tbsp

Salt – ¼ tsp  

Vanilla extract – 1 tsp

For the Topping

Butter – 4 tbsp

Brown sugar – ½ cup (or slightly lesser)

Milk – ¼ cup

Grated coconut- 1 cup

Method:

1.      Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease the tin.

2.   For the cake- In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs until frothy. Then add sugar, and beat at high speed until the mixture is thick and lemon coloured (7-10 mins).

3.      Sift flour, baking powder and salt and stir into the egg mixture.

4.    In a saucepan, heat the milk and butter together and bring it to a boil and then immediately add to the above mixture.

5.     Beat to combine.

6.      Bake until done (in my oven, it took 25 mins), let it cool.

7.      While the cake is cooling, prepare the topping.

8.  For the topping- mix all the ingredients together in a saucepan and cook on medium heat till the butter fully melts.

9.      Poke holes in the cake and spread the topping on the cake.

10.Bake for another few minutes at 180C until the topping is golden brown and bubbling.  

11. Done.

Recipe Notes:

·     I always slightly reduce the quantity of the sugar when there’s a topping on the cake because I don’t like my bakes too sweet.

·   You may also reduce the quantity of the coconut to suit your taste but 1 cup spreads perfectly over a 9 inch cake.

·      I have used freshly grated coconut. You may use sweetened coconut in which case, I would recommend reducing the quantity of sugar that goes into the topping.

·        The recipe doesn’t call for vanilla essence but I just add it to almost all my cakes.

·        I didn’t have brown sugar at home, so I used Demerara sugar instead.