Lychee and Coconut Custard Cake

So I’m a big consumer of Asian cuisines but even with all my investigating I’m yet to find a dessert that is moreish and appealing to our western taste buds.

At the same time I have been meaning to make a cake with custard (I am a massive custard fan). Outside of trifle and fruit flans I have never used this tasty household ingredient in bake-goods.

So I decided to take 2 popular Asian flavors (coconut and lychee) and make a sweet treat with a difference – by turning these into a cake with custard as the twist.

Introducing my Lychee and Coconut Custard Cake:

 

Ingredients:

Batter:

• 250g butter, softened
• 1 + ½ cups of sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 + ½ cups self raising flour
• ½ cup plain flour
• 2 tbsn coconut milk
• 80g desiccated coconut
• 2 tsn lime juice
• 250g lychees (480g can)

Custard:

• 3 tbsn custard powder
• 80g sugar
• 1 + ½ cup coconut milk
• 20g butter
• 1 tsn vanilla essence

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 175c and grease a 22cm spring form cake tin.
2. To make the custard combine all the ingredients together in a bowl, whisk.
3. Microwave for 1 minute and whisk, then microwave for 20 sec at a time until the custard is thick and smooth. Leave aside to cool.
4. Beat butter and sugar together with electric mixers until light, fluffy and pale.
5. Beat in eggs, one at a time.
6. Sift the flours into the bowl, add the milk, coconut and juice and fold until just combined.
7. Spread 65% of mix into the cake tin
8. Spoon in the custard and spread out with a spoon leaving 2 cm around the edges.
9. Cut all the lychees into 4 pieces each and place 75% of them on top of the custard.
10. Spoon the remaining cake batter over the lychees to cover completely.
11. Place the remaining lychees on the top scattered.
12. Bake in the oven for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until cooked.
13. Let the cake cool completely in the tin, then transfer onto a plate
14. Dust with icing sugar and extra desiccated coconut.

Notes:

• Place a piece of plastic wrap over the custard once made to stop a skin forming,
• You can make this recipe as a cherry or raspberry version for a more traditional cake by replacing the coconut milk with normal milk, desiccated coconut with almond meal, coconut essence with vanilla and berries/cherries instead of lychees.
• Serving with ice-cream makes this even more amazing.
• As we have used custard in this recipe the mix will not be completely dry when tested with a skewer as the custard makes the middle moist.

 

Step 6

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Step 9

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