RECIPE | COCONUT, ALMOND AND JAM SPONGE

Upon hearing the news of having four very hungry boys coming to stay with me last week, I knew that they would be expecting cake. As my sole cake tasters throughout university, I knew I would need to wow them with something new, so I had a dig through the cupboards to see what I could conjure up.

I decided to go on a mix of my coconut and raspberry loaf cake with my fruity bakewell sponge. The result turned out to be a delightfully moist and fluffy coconut, almond and jam sponge!

COCONUT, ALMOND AND JAM SPONGE

Ingredients:

225g Butter (or Soft Margarine)

225g Caster Sugar

4 Eggs

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence

200g Self-Raising Flour

50g Dessicated Coconut

1 1/2tsp Baking Powder

2-4tbsps Milk (Only if needed to loosen the dough)

6-8tsbs of Jam (Whichever you fancy)

3-4tbsps of Flaked Almonds

Instructions:

1.  Heat your oven to 180ºC and line a loose-bottomed cake tin with baking paper.

2.  Cream together the butter and the sugar until creamy and fluffy and light in colour - I recommend doing this with an electric hand whisk.

3.  Add the vanilla essence and eggs and whisk or beat until combined,

4.  Add the desiccated coconut, self raising flour and baking powder to the wet mixture and beat until combined. If you're mixture feels to heavy then add 2-4 tbps of milk to the mixture to loosen the batter.

5. Place half your batter in the lined cake tin and then dot your jam all around this layer. Follow by covering this with the left of the cake batter and then sprinkle with flaked almonds

6. Place on the middle shelf of your pre-heated oven for 45-55 minutes (use a skewer or something similar to test). Leave to cool for at least 30 minutes before removing from the tin and then dust with icing sugar to serve.