Ode to le weekend: coconut mango bundt-lettes

Week-end. Sleepy eyed morning, sun-bathed cafe.

Being a dilettante, flaneur, lady of leisure.

A wake-up-in-the-morning-and-jump-in-the-car day trip to Mittagong and Bowral. Where we ooh over antiques (a Indo-Persian chain mail helmet? Yes please), eat an intriguing tart (shiraz-poached pears and proschiutto, suspended in a barely-set, brie-enriched custard), and have a cheerful coffee:

(The coffee was in the Bradman Museum, aka Cricket International Hall of Fame. Yes, Mr Gander is a cricket fan. Yes, we bought a souvenir cricket ball. Yes, I still want that Indo-Persian chain mail helmet.)

A tropical thunderstorm on the drive back! While we wound our way down to that pretty little dam on the Nepean River, across a bridge that fits one car at a time, and up the other side.

That evening, making a promise to bake a layer birthday cake, while maybe mildly under the influence of the prettiest Pimms cocktail I’ve ever seen. Spending Sunday making and eating a coconut-mango cake (recipe below), before remembering the Pimms-enriched promise about a birthday cake. Dang.

Finally sneaking into Angie’s Fiesta Friday bash for the last of the Baileys-laced thandai. But this time, I know better than to make rash promises of baking birthday cakes.

The week ahead:

Planning a wine tasting for the team at work (wanted: understated yet fabulous canapes that perfectly match the rather decent wines, eeep).

Deadlines. Double eeep.

Eating this:

And these:

Coconut mango bundt-lettes

This comes from one of the first fail-safe recipes I found. The original is a coconut and raspberry loaf, a sweet, lighthearted, happy, any-time bake. Can a loaf or cake be happy? Yes, if it’s full of shredded coconuts and coconut cream and brightened by puddles of raspberries. This time, I had one of the last of summer mangoes, and a jar of kaya jam, and this somewhat experimental bake was born.

These cakes also made really good cake truffles.

Ingredients

1 3/4 cups desiccated coconut
1 cups coconut cream and half cup kaya jam (or use 1.5 cups coconut cream)
2/3 cup caster sugar (if only using coconut cream, use 1 cup sugar)
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 2/3 cups self-raising flour
2/3 cup diced fresh mangoes (or sub 1 cup frozen raspberries)

Method

1. Combine coconut, coconut cream and kaya in a large bowl. Cover and stand for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 170°C / 340°F. If using loaf pan, Line base and sides of a loaf pan with baking paper, allowing some overhang at both long ends so the loaf can be lifted out after baking. If using a mini-bundt pan, generously butter the pan.

3. Using a spatula, stir sugar, egg and vanilla into coconut mixture. Sift flour over coconut mixture. Gently stir until combined. Fold in mango (or raspberries).

4. For loaf: spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes. For mini-bundts: use a teaspoon, spoon mixture into bundt pans. Bake for about 20 minutes. Note: test the cake and remove from the oven when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean (my oven is a bit unreliable at the moment, so please test the cake a little while before the end of baking times).

5. Cool in pan for 5-10 minutes, remove to a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar or drizzle with your favourite glaze.

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Tagged: baking, Bowral, coconut, coconut mango cake, dilettante, Fiesta Friday, kaya, mango, mini-bundt, Novice Gardener, Ode to weekend, road trip