Lime & Coconut Drizzle Cake

Why this cake? Well, I had a heap of limes and I love Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s recipe for lemon and olive oil cake in her first book so I was going to make that with a lime spin. Then I had the coconut vision which led to changing half the ingredients, mixing up the quantities and adding a drizzle icing. A spin turned into a tornado, and here we are with this magical recipe. My first bite elicited a “holy shit” reaction because honestly, it was greater than I could have imagined. Texture heaven. Make this and enjoy.

YOU'LL NEED

3 limes
300g sugar
3 eggs
300ml coconut milk
150ml coconut oil
150ml olive oil
1/3 cup shredded coconut
300g self-raising flour (or 300g plain flour with 4 tsp of baking powder)

ICING

3 tbsp lime
200g icing sugar

MAKE IT

Preheat oven to 180˚C (or 160˚C fan-forced) and line 20cm cake tin with baking paper.

Rub the zest of three limes and the sugar together in a medium bowl until it has the texture of wet sand.

Whisk in the eggs vigorously until the mixture is lighter and thick. Then stir in the coconut milk, coconut oil and olive oil. Mix the flour and coconut in a large bowl and slowly add the wet mix to dry until it’s just combined.

Bake for 60 minutes in the middle of your oven. Once you’ve hit minutes, check the cake every 5 minutes until the middle looks set and a skewer comes out clean. This took me 70mins in total — it might take you less or more depending on your oven.

Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then tip it out on a wire rack to cool completely before icing.

For the icing mix 200g icing sugar with 3 tbsp of lime juice. It will seem dry to begin with but it will all come together. When you ice the cake, if it’s got any warmth to it, you’ll ruin it, so PLZ be patient. Pour all but 2 tablespoons of the icing onto the middle and gently coax it towards the edge with a spoon stopping about 3 cm from the edge of the cake. From here you’ll let gravity do its work and the icing will slllooowwwwllyy make its way to the edge and start dripping over. You can then help it out over the edge with some of the remaining icing if you need to — you can see this happen in the video here. Finish it off with a zesting of some lime and serve just as is because it’s perfect.