Orange Coconut Cake

It seems Summer has finally hit, only about a month and a half late. After what seems like months of rain and oddly cool temps, the clouds have cleared giving us blue skies and super hot humid days.

I'm more of a winter girl but I do love the flavours of summer, my favorite is the combination of coconut and pineapple. The only problem I had no pineapple, but I did have oranges. After flicking through a whole bunch of books I found a nice and simple recipe in my very old copy of Women's Weekly Cakes and Slices for a coconut and orange cake.

The coconut made the cake lovely and moist and it had the perfect amount of orange flavour. The original recipe suggested an orange buttercream frosting, but I love the look of drizzle icing and it's so so easy.

For the cake

1/2 cup coconut
1 cup milk
125grams softened butter
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups self-raising flour

To make the cake- In a small bowl combine milk and coconut, allow to stand at room temperature for one hour.


Grease and flour a cake tin. (I used a 8 inch round tin) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees c.

In a medium bowl, cream together butter, sugar and orange zest until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating until combined.

Mix in half of the flour and half of the coconut and milk.

Add the second half of the milk, coconut and flour and continue mixing until the batter is smooth.

Pour the cake batter into the preparded pan, smooth over the top.


Bake the cake for 1 1/2 hours until a skewer poked into the middle comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and allow to stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.

Once the cake is totally cool pour the icing onto the cake, spread over the top and allow to drip down the sides.


For the icing

1 1/2 cups icing sugar
3 tablespoons squeezed orange juice
1 teaspoon orange zest.

To make the icing- whisk together all ingredients until smooth. Pour over cooled cake.


PS. I have been dying to show off the beautiful teacup boyfriend got me for Christmas, I love it so much.