CocoPine & Lime Drizzle Cake

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Teatime!

An exotic, dreamy Caribbean oral adventure. Bring rum – at your own peril – for some serious excitement!

This recipe maintains a delicate balance between the all too pervasive cloyingness of coconut, the floral intensity of pineapple and lime’s brusque acidity. The result is a moist, soft cake that will surprise those paying attention to what is on their plate. A delightful rhythm of flavours unfolds with each bite. First up (always in the thick of it) is lime, reluctantly followed by succulent pineapple with – finally – indolent coconut sauntering along behind. And as we are all aware, coconut is the rake of the culinary world ...

Ripe pineapple is a cocktail all on it’s own. This recipe uses the reduced intensity of tinned pineapple (invariably manufactured from tangy, under ripe fruit) and combines it with the drowsy sweetness of desiccated coconut and coconut cream. Grated lime zest adds the zing and kick that prevents our creation from falling into full blown REM sleep. Lime’s determined sourness (and bitterness) rather pleasingly offset’s the exceeding sugary-ness of desiccated coconut and the tropical sweetness of tinned pineapple.

This recipe intentionally avoids coconut essence and uses two less pervasive alternatives to maintain the afore mentioned flavour balance:

• Coconut cream for it’s creamy moistness in the final product, and
• Desiccated coconut to provide a subdued – yet persistent - floral, coconut foundation.

Coconut essence (as an easier alternative) will boorishly pervade and recklessly barge in where it doesn’t belong. Quite similar to cinnamon and star anise which also needs to be kept on a short leash to prevent them dominating and flustering everything in sight.

This is somewhat of a miracle cake. During preparation, a ‘well’ is shaped in the unbaked batter by displacing it from the center of the tin to the sides. As the cake bakes, the batter rises and slowly fills the well, leaving a fairly even and smooth surface. Not digging a hole in the batter and baking it the ‘normal’, levelled way WILL result in severe bulging and cracking of the cake’s surface. Similar to an ancient, murderous Titan tumultuously clawing his way up from some dread subterranean dungeon.

Photo 5: Undecorated Baked Cake

In spite of the fruit, cream and fat, the cake is fairly light and crumbly – courtesy of the desiccated coconut interfering with gluten’s oft overbearing internal structure formation. Maturing the cake by one day will significantly improve the flavours.

Special Equipment Required:

1 x Kitchen Aid or Kenwood Chef type mixer equipped with the flat ‘K-beater’ attached.

1 x 18cm x 18cm Square cake tin, lined with baking paper, well greased & thoroughly dusted with flour.

1 x Long tined fork.

Ingredients:

For the cake:
Butter or full fat margarine, room temperature	150g
Caster sugar	150g
Fresh lime peel, finely grated	30ml
Salt	2.5ml
Fine black pepper	½ ml
Whole eggs, extra large	2
Egg white, extra large	1
Cake / General purpose flour	250g
Desiccated coconut	75g
Baking powder	7.5ml
Coconut cream, room temperature	80ml
Tinned pineapple rings, roughly chopped	4 rings / ± 160g
For the lemon syrup:
Commercial, stabilised lemon juice	100ml
Lime juice, commercial or fresh, unsweetened	45ml
Brown sugar	50g
For the drizzle icing:
Sifted icing sugar	100g
Pineapple juice (from the tinned pineapple), hot	45 – 50ml
Decoration:
Lime wedges or toasted coconut flakes	To taste

Method:

1. Beat the fat, sugar, peel, salt and pepper together until light and creamy.
2. Combine the eggs and egg white thoroughly. Add it in small portions to the beating fat and sugar. Regularly scrape the sides of the bowl down to ensure full incorporation of all the ingredients. The creamed fat will eventually appear grainy, this is in order.
3. Sift the cake flour and baking powder together once. Add the desiccated coconut and mix well.
4. Add half of the flour mixture and half of the coconut cream to the beaten fat. Mix with a spatula in figure 8 motions until the components are just mixed and very moist. Add the remainder of the flour mixture, coconut cream and the pineapple pieces. Mix as before until everything is just incorporated – do not over mix. The batter will be quite stiff; this is in order as well.
5. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and level it with a spoon or spatula. Using circular motions, scrape batter out from the center and up against the sides of the pan until a ‘well’ is formed down to the bottom of the tin. This ‘well’ should take up approximately one third of the tin’s volume with the displaced batter being ‘piled up’ evenly against the sides of the tin.
6. Bake 55 – 60 minutes at 165°C (330deg. Fahrenheit) in a preheated convection oven or until the cake starts pulling away slightly from the sides of the tin. Be careful when using a test pin as the cake is very rich and moist from the fruit pieces. This may cause soft crumbs to stick to the testing pin and give a false impression that the cake is not fully cooked.
7. Combine the ingredients of the syrup and heat to boiling approx. 10 minutes before the cake is ready.
8. Remove the cake from the oven and immediately use the fork to press holes in even rows across the surface of the cake as deep as the fork can go. Pour the boiling hot syrup evenly over the cake in a thin stream.
9. Let the cake cool and rest 30 minutes in the tin. Use a thin bladed kitchen utility knife or offset spatula to gently loosen the cake from the sides of the tin. Place an upside down plate over the tin and rapidly invert. The cake should slide out quite easily. Place a wire rack on the upside down cake and briskly turn upright. Cover with a dry dishcloth and allow to cool to room temperature.
10. Heat the pineapple juice in a microwave until boiling. Make a well in the middle of the icing sugar. Add the juice in small increments while whisking from the middle outwards, gradually collecting all the icing sugar. Add just enough hot juice to turn the icing sugar paste into a syrupy, smooth consistency. Drizzle in a thin stream over the cake using slow, even too & fro motions.
11. Allow the icing to harden and decorate with flakes of toasted coconut or strips of fresh lime peel just before serving.
12. To toast the coconut flakes: Spread the flakes evenly over a Swiss roll pan. Using constant visual supervision, ‘bake’ for 3 – 5 minutes at 165°C (330deg. Fahrenheit) in a preheated convection oven. Shake the pan once or twice to allow even browning. Be vigilant! The coconut flakes char extraordinarily fast.

Comments:

• The batter will be quite stiff. This will prevent the pineapple pieces from sinking down to the bottom of the pan during baking and is also the requirement for the syrup to be added at the end.
• The batter is quite heavy and ‘diluted’ with desiccated coconut, making it difficult for gluten to fully support the internal crumb structure of the cake. The protein from the extra egg white aids in preventing the cake from sinking in the middle when removed from the oven.
• The cake will feel unusually heavy when removed from the oven. This is due to the pineapple pieces and coconut cream, neither of which relinquishes their moisture easily. As long as a testing pin comes out clean and the cake pulls away slightly from the sides of the tin, all will be well.
• Do not be too vigorous when making the cake full of holes as the crumb is very tender and chunks of cake will easily break out from the surface and spoil the appearance of the cake.
• Press a vertical bamboo skewer to the edge of the sauce pan when pouring the hot syrup over the oven-hot cake. This will assist in ‘guiding’ the stream of hot syrup in evenly distributed rows over the surface of the cake.
• The cake will be at it’s best when allowed to mature for 1 day.

© RS Young, 2018

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