Cactus Coconut Cake and Cybercandy

Sometimes you just need something different, sometimes you need a treat and, luckily one of these times has been eating a Cactus Coconut Cake.  A lovely polenta and coconut cake, topped with Malibu and sweetened mascarpone, toasted coconut and decorated with Cactus Candy. Not a prickle in sight but a fun name for this imported sweetie from Cybercandy, more from them at the sharp end of this blog !

The inspiration for the polenta cake comes from Martyna  at the Wholesome Cook blog; lemon polenta cake. I have baked this a few times now with a variety of toppings when there is no cactus available! The picture on the left shows a Piña Colada  Cake and a Raspberry Polenta Cake. I had a challenge to make a cake for a friend who had a nut, dairy and gluten allergy but they could eat coconuts. The raspberry and coconut worked really well together and next time, I will include whole fresh raspberries in the batter too.  I also adapted the recipe using butter or a non dairy baking fat , no baking powder and slightly more coconut than polenta . I love the taste of butter in plain polenta cake but in the decorated cakes, you couldn't really taste the difference with the non dairy fat. The coconut did make a change from having almonds with the polenta and, the texture of the coconut complemented the polenta , providing a light chewiness rather than any grittiness you sometimes get. Remember to buy quick cook polenta and cook in a slow oven for an improved texture.

Text Only Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

Cake :

10oz (300g) Butter or Non dairy fat
8oz (225g) Golden caster sugar

4 tbsp honey
4 Large eggs
10oz (300g) Quick Cook Polenta

5oz (150g) desiccated coconut
Juice of one large lemon
4 tbsp milk

4 tbsp Malibu or coconut syrup poured onto the cooling cake

Cream Topping:

4oz (110g) Icing sugar
4 tbsp Mascarpone Cream (250g pot)
1 tbsp Malibu or a few drops of coconut essence


Decoration:

3oz (90g) Toasted Coconut crushed or left in strands ( subs unsweetened dried coconut if pref)
Cactus Candy cut into cubes (subs pineapple chunks and maraschino cherries to decorate for a Piña Colada  cake.)

Method:

Preheat oven 140c/120c Fan/275F/Gas Mark 1.

Grease 2 sandwich cake tins; add greaseproof paper at the bottom . Quantities are for two 7 inch /18cm cake tins. (NB This will fill the tins but they will not rise too much, if you use different size tins please adjust your oven temperature accordingly)

Cream the sugar and fat together. Beat in the honey. Add the eggs one at a time and beat well. Fold in the polenta and coconut and finally stir in the  juice and milk. Put equal quantities into cake tins and place in oven.
Check after 20 minutes. Turn oven down by twenty degrees and cover tops with loose grease proof paper to stop over browning. Cook for another 20 mins or  until a skewer comes cleanly out. Allow to cool slightly. You may prefer to turn the cake over and decorate using the less brown, flatter underside or trim the top slightly. Prick surface of cake gently and pour over syrup or Malibu.

Mix mascarpone and icing sugar together and add coconut essence or Malibu. Spread onto the tops of both cakes and decorate with coconut and candy. Put into fridge until cream firms slightly.

Cybercandy did provide inspiration for a new cake topping but for anyone homesick for a 'Baby Ruth' Bar or a real 'Giant Pocky' , Cybercandy is the site for you; sweets and candy from around the world with emphasis on the US and a fair crack at Japan too.  A Quarter Of  provided the sweetened toasted coconut for the  topping which in the UK is also known as Sweet Tobacco.

Sweet tobacco, sweet toasted coconut

(I didn't manage to put that in the title too: a Sweet Tobacco  Cactus Coconut Cake may be just too far! )

I was initially hunting for real American Soda, for the famous Harry Potter Butter Beer Recipe (yes, US Cream Soda does taste different), and was immediately tempted by the wide array of treats on offer at Cybercandy.  Bubbly Strawberry Chocolate Fish and the Lemonade and Cola Kitkat come highly recommended. The Giant Pocky remained in one piece but we liked the strawberry flavoured packs too.

So many fun things to choose from and the sweet Ferraris from Sweden were a harder chew but it's the only way I'll afford twenty Ferraris in one go! With Father's Day coming up or anyone stuck for a different present, this site  could solve your gift problems. We used Cybercandy for birthday favours as well and got some nice girlie items but for those with teenagers the Amber Insect Inside Ribbon Candy has to be a possibility!

Curiosity got the better of me and I had to try the Cactus Candy and it turned out to be a real talking point for the topping on this Coconut Cake.  More like a sweet, amber, quince jelly and why did I think it would be green? 

Meanwhile, apart from cactus and exams last month, in the UK we had some unseasonably hot weather, rare enough in summer but good enough for some ice cream themed cakes. Come back over the next few weeks for your Banana Splits, Knickerbocker Glories and Chocolate Sundae Cakes. 

Arizona's Cactus Candy - Inspiration



Magical Sherbet Lemon Cake - Harry Potter Time

Well here it is at last, the Magical Sherbet Lemon Cake! And what took me so long? And why is it purple and blue? And how is it magical? In the glittery sparkle, we have golden stars and, hidden in the grooves of buttercream, are fizzy popping explosions. Underneath we have whirls of  green, red and yellow and finally in the centre the very English, sharp, sherbet lemon cream...

Suddenly ...

there were cupcakes too!

And carried away in a magical, cake making frenzy, popping cake pops were made as well!

I had been playing with the idea of a 'Sherbet* Lemon Cake' for a long time and made some very nice variations on this theme. I made various yellow cakes with a great lemon tang but they ultimately looked so boring. Inspiration for this cake is a *lemon sherbet; an English candy with a hard candy lemon flavoured body and shot through the middle with sherbet powder, just like the picture on the left. Luckily for me, one  brain synapse was still working and a thought transmitted across to another random cell;

'If Dumbledore had wanted a Sherbet Lemon Cake, it would have to look at least magical, if not very special and, probably not an obvious yellow colour'. 

So how did we get to Harry Potter fiction from a Sherbet Lemon ? click here . Meanwhile, a quick visit to Madame Rosmerta's Recipes via Muggle Net and, one of my other favourite Harry Potter fans; Britta Peterson (who has a web site with lots of creative ideas as well as a very good Butterbeer recipe ) I realised where I was going wrong. Too much ‘muggle’ !

The good news is that is really is a fun cake to make and does not need any special equipment. It gets it’s magic from colour and sparkle, especially the laser cut holographic glitters and gold stars. Take your favourite cake recipe and add colour.

I used a lemon basic (pound) cake recipe:

Text Only Printable Recipe

Ingredients:

Cake :

8oz (225g) Butter
8oz (225g) Golden caster sugar
4 Eggs
8oz (225g) Self raising flour
2 Lemons

Food colouring red and green

Inner Butter Cream :


4oz (110g) Icing sugar
1 oz (30g) Butter
Juice only from lemon
Sherbet powder ( 2 Sherbet fountains or two packets of Dib Dabs)

Outer Butter Cream :8oz (2250g) Icing sugar
2 oz (60g) Butter
Few drops of Vanilla essence 

Purple Food colouring

Holographic edible Glitters - Blue and Purple

Gold edible icing stars

Space dust or Popping Candy

White chocolate for cake pops ( 100 g bar )
Coloured sherbet powder for cake pops

Method:

Preheat oven 140c/120c Fan/275F/Gas Mark 1.

Grease a dome/ 1L pyrex bowl and line bottom with baking paper, put 6 cup cake liners in a tin. This recipe is enough to make one cake and 6 cup cakes.  If you trim the dome cake, it should leave you enough crumbs for 12 cake pops too.

Remove zest from both lemons. Cream the sugar and butter together. Whisk in the eggs one at a time. Stir in the lemon zest. Fold in the flour and add the juice from one lemon. 

Divide the mixture into three and add food colouring to two of the portions. Place three colours of batter into the cases or tin, take a cocktail stick and give them a good swirl.

Place in the centre of the oven. Check after 20 minutes. Remove cup cakes.

Turn oven down by another 20 degrees and cook main cake for a further 40 mins. Cook until risen and a skewer comes cleanly out. Allow to cool and make icing. 

Simple butter creams – whisk soft butter, icing sugar, flavouring and colour together to form a soft spreadable icing. Add water as necessary.  For the inner lemon butter cream; the idea is to get a real tang, so we have added the juice of a large lemon and some sherbet powder. Has your face puckered up yet? Good, that is what you are after, the zing in the centre of the sherbet lemon!

Trim your dome cake to the desired shape and save the off cuts for the cake pops.

Gradually crumbing the off cuts for cake pops. Mix with a spoon full of zingy lemon butter cream and a spoon full of cream cheese. From into balls and place into fridge until firm enough to put on stick, coat with chocolate and magical sprinkles. Cake balls, not sure? click on Bakerella.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, cut the cooled cake in half and make a central hole with an apple corer. This is for your zingy, lemon cream centre just like the sherbet lemons. Spread the icing over the two halves and them pack sherbet powder onto the icing. Put a mix of sherbet powder and icing into the central hole too. Assemble the cake and then cover in purple buttercream. A thin crumb coat works best, chill, the follow with a second coat and add upward swirls with a fork. Sprinkle glitter and stars for magic.

The cup cakes get the same treatment with the centre cut out, filled with buttercream and sherbet powder and the centre inverted to make a shape for a wizard hat. Cover with the purple buttercream and add swirls with a fork on both the large cake and the cupcakes.

Sprinkle glitter and stars for magic. There seem to be plenty of suppliers for these glitters. (I ordered mine and the edible gold stars from Cakes and Shakes UK via Amazon as they had lots of other tempting things on offer.)

I have to concede that the cup cakes were the most popular, although the large cake tasted really good, people actually wanted to hold the cup cakes and look at the sparkle for quite awhile! What was slightly more tricky was the fizz and pop.....

Also, known as 'space dust' in the UK, this gives a popping sensation in the mouth as it reacts with moisture. I mixed some with the glitter and sprinkled it over the cakes at the last moment and round the edge of the large cake to serve up with a slice.

Strangely enough, the most successful were the cake pops that really did 'Pop'.  I put the space dust in the mini cases the cake pops were drying in . I covered the cake balls in coloured  chocolate , some coloured sherbet powder and put them on top of the popping candy in the cases. It all went in the fridge to firm up.
The small cakes lost a lot of their pop, the large cake was second best and, the pop cakes went 'Pop, Fizz, Pop'. Producing silly smiles on all the adults that could actually remember it first time round. Click on this for a UK supplier, A Quarter Of.

For  white sherbet supplies there are two main types readily available in the UK

Sherbet Fountains or

Sherbet Dib Dabs

So a sherbet lemon in the UK is a candy. I also learnt that I had been spelling it wrong for years as a 'Sherbert'. However, I am not the only sinner here and it can be found on many an English site.  I hope you enjoy the Harry Potter Deathly Hallows film again which I found  'darker' than the others, ( then again I am a real coward ) but enjoyable too. It was great fun using the holographic glitters that kept well and so did the stars. It would be very easy to produce the cupcakes and it seemed, according to my tester groups, adults liked them just as much as the children. Happy Magical Baking !