Baking with Coconut Milk

Recently I made the recipe below. The pictures were nice, but I was in a rush, and my raspberries were thawed. That had the effect of coloured batter and wet bits in the cake. I have my freezer away from our usual home. The raspberries pictures were a day old in the fridge, I used those too. However, I thoroughly enjoyed eating the cake. It tasted like raspberries and cream. It was all very exciting. If you are not keen on cakes with butter in them because of heartburn or whatever, try coconut milk. I haven't tried more than one recipe though.

I decided a month or two ago that coconut is one of those tastes Australians appreciate. I noticed today that the cake can be toasted. I didn't try that.

Raspberry & Coconut Loaf

1 3/4 cups desiccated coconut
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 2/3 cups self-raising flour
1 cup frozen raspberries
pure icing sugar, to serve

Combine coconut and coconut milk in a large bowl. Cover and stand for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 170°C. Line base and sides of a 7cm-deep, 10.5cm x 20.5cm (base) loaf pan with baking paper, allowing a 2cm overhang at both long ends.

Using a metal spoon, stir sugar, egg and vanilla into coconut mixture. Sift flour over coconut mixture. Gently stir until combined. Fold in raspberries.

Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour 10 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Cool loaf in pan for 10 minutes. Lift onto a wire rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar and slice. Serve toasted, if desired.

Here are some more recipes that include coconut milk. They look delicious! Especially since I recently tried a sweet impossible pie from a fund raising book that is old, but still popular.

Coconut & Lemon Self-saucing Pudding
Coconut & Passionfruit Self-saucing Pudding
Pear & Raspberry Coconut Bread
Coconut Pudding with Golden Syrup
Impossible Coconut Pie
Passionfruit Layer Cake

My family like their baking racks in the oven differently to what I would like them, so my cake grew through the rack. It was a bad time of day to be baking. I had to stay home to wait for it to cook too, while the others went somewhere.