Plum and coconut cake

This coconut cake with plums is one of the most wonderful butter cakes I’ve baked recently. The combination of plums, coconut and lemon might sound unusual at first, but once baked it’s impossible to resist. The cake is soft, moist and packed with fruit. Highly recommended.

Ingredients for plum and coconut cake:

• 125 g butter
• 125 g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon lemon extract (or a few drops of lemon flavouring or finely grated lemon zest)
• 200 g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 75 g desiccated coconut
• 125 g Greek yoghurt or sour cream
• 450 g plums, stoned

All ingredients should be at room temperature. Sift the plain flour together with the baking powder and set aside.

Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a mixer and beat for several minutes until very pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition until incorporated. Add the lemon extract and mix briefly. Add the sifted flour mixture and the desiccated coconut alternately with the Greek yoghurt or sour cream, in two batches. Fold gently with a spatula just until the ingredients are combined.

Grease a 29 × 18 cm baking tin with butter and line with baking paper. Spoon the batter into the tin and level the surface. Press the halved plums into the batter (you can place them cut side up on top, or insert them sideways into the batter as I did).

Bake at 160°C for about 40–45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven, drizzle with icing, then slice and serve.

Ingredients for coconut icing:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 3 tablespoons coconut liqueur*

Place all the ingredients in a bowl and mix with the back of a spoon until smooth. If the icing is too thin, add more icing sugar; if it is too thick, add a little more coconut liqueur.

*The coconut liqueur can be replaced with lemon juice or water.

Enjoy!

Recipe adapted from goodtoknow.co.uk.