Carina in print – Daily Record

Carina writes a weekly cake column for the Daily Record. Buy it every Monday or check our blog for the recipe. In addition you can sample the weekly cake at our fabulous Scottish Cafe & Restaurant at the Scottish National Gallery.

I LOVE COCONUT CAKE

This is one of the first cakes I ever learnt how to make. It’s very very easy and if you eat it warm you’ll be booking your gym subscription as the whole cake will be finished in a oner!

4 free range eggs
Same weight of the eggs for the unsalted butter (at room temperature), caster sugar, self raising flour.
Remove 4 spoonfuls of flour and add desiccated to replace same volume
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
30cm lined baking tin – round or loaf

Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.Add the vanilla.
Slowly add the flour and egg until all combined.
Finish by mixing in the baking powder and the milk
Bake in the lined tin for about 45 minutes Gas Mark 4
Remove when cooked and cool
Cover with the icing and then sprinkle with coconut for the final finishing decoration
Enjoy as soon as possible!

For the icing – optional if wanted

200g icing sugar
30ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat the sugar, milk and vanilla together until glossy. For every egg remove a large tablespoon of flour and make up the weight in coconut. You can use desiccated coconut but I love using freshly grated fresh coconut. It really tastes best with this.