baking

It's no secret I have a bit of a sweet tooth. And with lots of little events and fundraisers at the village school, not to mention a whole family of sweet toothes, there is certainly many opportunities for baking.

Recently the school was offering an assortment of books to purchase. For bargain prices too, I might add. When I saw "The Country Show Cookbook" I was rather excited, as I had borrowed it from the library months ago, and it was one of those books that you just don't want to bring back (and run up exorbitant fees in the process). Overnight it became our village's bestseller.

It is the kind of baking we all enjoyed before we became a nation of food snobs. And I mean that in the nicest possible way, as I enjoy a cannoli or croissant as much as the next girl. And no, I haven't tried one of those coloured macaroons yet, but I suspect  I would like them.  If you miss rock cakes, sponges, black forest cake and pumpkin scones, you will love this book.

(Available here, here or here.)

Below is the coconut cake I made on the weekend. The most delicious coconut cake I've tasted yet. And most unkind to your waistline. But I say go all-out if you are going to go to the trouble of baking.
Here is my take on the above cake:

Coconut Cake

125g butter

1 cup castor sugar

1/2 tsp coconut essence

2 eggs

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1 1/2 cups plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

300g carton sour cream (though I ran out of sour cream and replaced about 1/4 of this amount with natural yoghurt)

1/3 cup milk

Icing

2 cups icing sugar

1 1/2 cups coconut

2 eggwhites

Preheat oven 180 C. Grease and flour a 23cm round cake tin.

Cream together softened butter, sugar and coconut essence, with beaters, until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until combined. Mix in remaining ingredients (the recipe recommends doing this in halves with the liquid and dry ingredients, but I never bother) and mix until smooth.

Bake for approximately 1 hour or until done.

Icing: Combine sifted icing sugar with coconut in a bow. Add egg whites and mix well. Colour pink if decided. 

I'm not the one to pull out the food colouring willy-nilly, so I think the pink will only be used on special occasions here. No need to have the kids going mad.

Here is my finished version that also appeared on Monday's post.

Happy baking!