Have Your Cake and Eat It Too

Yoshi checking out the Coconut Cake with Lemon Coconut Frosting

Dana found some coconut flour for me at Deals and Steals in Northampton a few days ago and I decided it was time to try making a cake.  Yes cake, similar to yellow cake, this coconut flour cake is moist and deliciously cakey, and you can eat it too!  No gluten, no dairy, no added sugar, it’s perfect for those with allergies, Candida and gluten intolerance.  The package of coconut flour had some helpful tips for baking and their website is also pretty informative. I found several similar recipes for cakes made with coconut flour from Nourished Kitchen and Nourishing Days and decided to go with a half recipe, with minor changes, from Nourished Kitchen and the frosting recipe from the second site.  I made the mistake of making the frosting while excitedly waiting for the cake to bake.  Sigh.  The frosting is easy but when it gets to the correct consistency it needs to go directly on a COMPLETELY cooled cake.  So start making the frosting after the cake has cooled. It still tasted just fine but it could have been a little more picture perfect and I think the frosting would have stuck to the cake better. Guess I’ll have to make another one, this time with lime and dark chocolate ganache!  I’ll post some variations soon.

Coconut Flour Cake: Ingredients

• 6 large eggs or 5 HUGE eggs ( local, organic, free range, for chicken’s sake)
• 1 cup coconut milk
• Stevia to taste
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon coconut extract
• 1/4 teaspoon lemon extract
• 1 cup coconut flour, plus extra for greasing the pan
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• a pinch unrefined sea salt
• coconut oil, for greasing the pan

Coconut Flour Cake: Method

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Beat the eggs, one cup coconut milk and stevia together with vanilla, coconut and lemon extracts until smooth, creamy and uniform in both color and texture.  I didn’t have coconut extract so I used a bit more lemon and vanilla.  Use what you have, improvise what you don’t!
3. Add the coconut flour, baking soda and unrefined sea salt into the mixture of eggs, stevia and extracts, and continue to beat until a smooth batter forms.  Taste and adjust for sweetness.
4. Grease and flour an eight-inch cake tin.  I used a spring form pan and kept the cake on the bottom piece as a serving ‘dish’.
5. Pour, or spoon, the cake batter into the greased and floured tin, shaking to even out the batter and smoothing it with the back of a spoon or with a rubber spatula.
6. Bake in an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 35- 40 minutes, or until the cake separates from the sides of the tin and a toothpick inserted into the cake’s center comes out clean.
7. Place the cake on a cooling rack. After the cake has cooled a bit, but is still warm, poke holes all over the top with a fork. Juice half a lemon right over the whole cake, making sure to evenly distribute the juice.
8. Allow the cake to cool completely before frosting with the coconut frosting below.  This is important, the frosting will slide around instead of stick to the cake if the cake is still warm.  How do I know?  I ran out of time and hastily frosted an almost cooled cake.  It still tasted good but definitely lost some points on aesthetics.

1. 

   Cooling the cake, its still on the bottom of the spring form pan. I assaulted the top with a fork and squeezed a lemon over the cake for extra flavor. The holes from the fork will be covered by the frosting.

YIELD: one eight-inch cake.  Original recipe from Nourished Kitchen is doubled and makes 2 eight inch rounds, perfect for special occasion layer cakes!  Here’s the original recipe.

TIME: about five to ten minutes (active time), forty minutes (baking time), forty minutes to one hour (cooling time)

Nutrition Info (I did the calculation myself  using the nutrition info on the packages)  One 8 in cake, 16 slices, without frosting: Calories 95  Fat 5.6  Fiber 2.5  Carbohydrates 2  Protein 4

With Frosting: Calories 154  Fat 12 Fiber 2.5 Carbohydrates 2 Protein 4

Remember, the fat from coconut oil is good for you and helps combat Candida, and that’s just the beginning!

Coconut Lemon Frosting

Recipe notes: Be sure to melt your coconut oil in a glass bowl. I do this by putting the bowl over a small pan of simmering water or putting it in the hot oven for a few minutes.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted in a glass bowl
• 9 drops of liquid stevia (alternatively, you could use a couple of teaspoons of raw honey or powdered stevia)
• 1 packed teaspoon lemon zest (use an organic lemon other wise you’ll be zesting chemicals, gross)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients into the warm coconut oil. You are now going to place the bowl into the freezer in order to cool it down. It is very important to check on it every couple of minutes to catch it before it gets too cold. You want to take it out of the freezer right when it starts to get cloudy.
   

   Mixing the ingredients in the warm coconut oil. After it has been in the freezer for 3 minutes start checking it frequently.

2. At this point the cold bowl (and your cool kitchen) will continue to turn the liquid oil into a solid. Continue to whisk the frosting as it gets cloudier and cloudier and eventually turns into a whipped butter consistency. The idea is to get a bit of air into it. Once it is to a whipped (very soft) butter consistency plop it onto your cooled cake. Frost it very quickly before the coconut oil hardens. It will seem like a pretty thin layer of frosting, but it is just enough.   Original recipe with an alternate coconut cake recipe here.
   

   Whipping the frosting as soon as the oil starts to get cloudy (cool). Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl while you whip the frosting together!

   And….there you are, having your cake and eating it too!

   

   No more cake-less birthdays!