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Friday 18 April 2008

Dinner for the parents

Today I made my mango & coconut cake again. I posted a pic of this cake the last time I made it -it basically came about from not knowing what to do with a mango that was starting to get old! I loved it but still felt that it needed a tweak.

Well I have it down now and made it again to take to my parents’ house tonight, where I cooked them dinner. I took a pic before I left my flat, just in case the worst happened and my cake became roadkill on the journey – like the last cake I took over there!

This is my new favourite cake!! I changed up the topping too for some coconut buttercream, which is way sexier than the boring old (but really tasty) cream cheese frosting I used before. Recipe follows the pics.

I am happy to say it survived the drive and went down a storm with the olds! They 'forced' me to take home about a quarter! They did keep a wedge for their coffee tomorrow though so I don't feel too bad about it.

For the main course I made a baked mushroom risotto with roasted carrots. Pic below. Haven’t posted a recipe as I kind of made it up as I went along and it was a case of bunging stuff in the pan and hoping for the best, as usual. But it turned out really well so when I make it again, I shall measure and post the findings afterwards! I served it with some simple roasted baby carrots.



Enough yakking, here's the cake. I am not the world's best icing piper (world's worst? Maybe not, but probably in the bottom 10!) so my effort looks a bit like a 10 year old's attempt, but the taste is what counts, right? Well it tasted chuffin marvellous!!


Ingredients For the Mango & Coconut Cake (edits added at end of recipe in 2009 to lower the fat content a bit!):
One large ripe mango
180 ml / ¾ cup soy milk
180ml / ¾ cup sunflower oil (or other light, flavourless oil)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp orange extract (or lemon, or more vanilla)
175g / ¾ cup Golden Castor Sugar
125g / 1.5 cup plain flour
25g / ¼ cup desiccated coconut
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp salt

Icing (in cups because I was in a rush and didn't have time to weigh it!):
1/2 cup vegan margarine (I use Pure Soya, which is really soft but if you use a firmer one, just make sure it's at room temp)
3.5 cups icing sugar
2 tbsp coconut milk*
1/2 cup desiccated coconut

Method:
Line a cake tin with baking parchment and preheat your oven to 180°C.

Chop the flesh of the mango off the stone and remove the skin. Chop as finely as you can but don’t process it – you don’t want puree.

Stir together the dry ingredients and set aside. Stir the wet ingredients together and pour them into the wet ingredients. Mix well until there are no large lumps. Add the mango and stir well. It is quite a soft mixture .... see....

Pour the mixture into the lined tin and just until a knife or cocktail stick just comes out clean. It takes about 50 minutes in my oven. Don’t overbake it – you don’t want a scabby dry old cake! You need to take it out the oven when the knife isn’t 100% clean, still a bit soft on the inside but nice and crispy on top. That way it makes the cake stay really moist and it stays that way too for a good few days!

Leave to cool in the tin for 5 minutes or so, then turn it out onto a wire rack and leave till it's completely cold - do not even think of frosting it before it gets cold, or you'll melt the frosting!

To make the icing, put the margarine into a bowl and add the icing sugar in 3 batches. Between each batch, use a fork to cream it together. Once all the sugar is incorporated, add the coconut milk and desiccated coconut and mix well. I like to get an electric beater in there too to make it really smooth! Then just spread or pipe it on. The icing will set up a bit after about 5/10 minutes.

*Coconut milk - this is not the time for light coconut milk, full fat stuff is better because it's more coconutty! That is not a word I know - oh how I laugh at you dictionary! Also, as you only need 2 tablespoons, it seems a shame to open a whole can unless you have another use for it (I'm sure tomorrow or sunday's post will show you what I do with it). But you can buy little baby tins now too for about 50p! That might be more economical.


EDITS: If you can't find a decent mango - use a tin. You want about 1/2 - 1 cup of finely chopped mango). Also, to make this cake lower fat, reduce the oil content to 1/4 cup (4 tbsp) and replace the 1/2 cup of missing liquid with either more non-dairy milk, orange juice or if using tinned mango, some of the syrup from the tin.

For cupcakes reduce the cooking time to 20-25 mins. Makes 12-15 cuppies, depending on how high you fill them.


Cooking to: Prince – The Very Best of...

Bonus pic... this was today’s lunch (I love days off work!) tofu scramble with potato farls and a couple of leftover meatballs from yesterday’s dinner crumbled in. Very yum!

1 comment:

  1. HOLY GOOD GRAVY! I mean cake! The stars were aligned earlier tonight. I had ripe mangoes sitting around and browsed onto your site. This is fabulous and you are a genius. Cake for breakfast!

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