Lime & coconut yoghurt cake

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his cake was borne of a feeling that told me, Yes, okay, it’s time to bake now, stop claiming lack of inspiration and just look around you. Eggs that supposedly went out of date days ago (still fine!), tubs of yoghurt, and a couple of limes. I desperately wanted to be back on the baking wagon right away; to be able to say, Whisk, whisk, fold, oven, done – victory! But my first attempt at this cake was honestly poor.

Lime & coconut yoghurt cake // The Dinner BellMy ever-so-polite colleagues ate it even though the glaze was too thin and soaked through to make the cake the texture of gummy bears, so moist that it sat heavy in your stomach. But I knew it needed a lot more work – I knew I’d made mistakes, and I almost decided not to admit that on the internet.

Growing up alongside the invasion of social media makes it amazingly easy to have a skewed view of everyone else’s lives. It brings you to just a few clicks away from being fully mired in grass-is-greener delusions and gives you the tools to compare yourself to every single friend or stranger that pops up your feeds, while you sit there thinking, Oh my god, I know at least three people with book deals and I couldn’t even find a matching pair of socks this morning. (True story. I only have socks in three colours and I still struggle.)

Buuuuut of course that’s ridiculous. We all have different paths, and this small segment of mine means I can tell you guys what changes absolutely should not be made to this recipe (see notes!). It took a couple of tweaks – and a couple of batches of cake forced upon those colleagues – but it’s finally just right.

Even better, it could easily be used as a springboard for other flavour combinations. It could be jazzed up with frosting or, without the coconut, made more colourful with the addition of berries, or warmed up a little with some stem ginger. You could add a splash of mint and a mojito-inspired topping for a more tropical treat. It’s a launch pad for even greater things.

LimeCoconut1

Lime & coconut yoghurt cake

Yields 11 slices – could easily feed 22, though.

Adapted from A Cozy Kitchen

Ingredients

170g caster sugar
50g brown sugar
Zest of two limes
45g dessicated coconut
250g 0% fat Greek yoghurt
3 medium eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
Juice of half a lime
190g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
110ml olive oil

100g icing sugar
Juice of half a lime
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Desiccated coconut, to sprinkle

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 170C and line a loaf tin. Rub together the sugars, zest, and coconut, then whisk in the yoghurt, eggs, vanilla, and lime juice.
  2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
  3. Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, then carefully fold in the olive oil. Pour the batter into the tin and bake on the centre shelf for 40-45 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. You may need to cover the top with foil to keep it from catching.
  4. To make the glaze, mix together the icing sugar, vanilla extract, and lime juice until smooth. Just before serving the cake, spread the glaze over the top – a little trickle over the sides is, if anything, desirable – and sprinkle liberally with coconut.
Notes:

  • Your cake won’t be so dark on the outside! My oven is broken.
  • Don’t be tempted to sub out the Greek yoghurt for natural yoghurt – it adds too much moisture.
  • Glaze and sprinkle with coconut just before serving. Don’t add any more liquid to the glaze, or you risk getting gummy cake.

9 thoughts on “Lime & coconut yoghurt cake

  1. Lynsey Jade says:

    I have only just discovered your blog and I must say I love your writing style and beautiful pictures! Your story telling sounds effortless, and you write just how I would speak. Its nice to know Im not the only one that has disasters in the kitchen ! Im now going to have a snoop around your blog as a way to distract myself from revision (my exam is tomorrow eeeek) ! L x

  2. kathryn says:

    Thank you! Just found this on foodgawker and it’s just what I was needed 🙂

    Here’s hoping necessity be the mother of sweet invention.. I made the following substitutions:
    zest of 3 key limes, juice of one
    WW Pastry Flour
    vanilla paste instead of regular extract
    60ML EVOO, 50 ML Veg Oil
    11 minutes in a mini muffin tin- delicious, but now I’m wondering about substituting some of the oil for coconut oil? What do you think?

  3. Jules says:

    I made this yesterday in an 8″ cake tin. It’s delicious, light and moist. Absolutely yummy and definitely in my list of ‘keepers’. Thanks for the recipe.

  4. Hannah Jade says:

    Hi Naomi! I’ve not personally tried it so I couldn’t say for certain one way or the other – a quick google suggests it should be alright though? If you do try it, I’d love to know how you get on!

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