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:

Pre-heat the oven to 175c and grease a 22cm spring form cake tin.
To make the custard combine all the ingredients together in a bowl, whisk.
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.
Beat butter and sugar together with electric mixers until light, fluffy and pale.
Beat in eggs, one at a time.
Sift the flours into the bowl, add the milk, coconut and juice and fold until just combined.
Spread 65% of mix into the cake tin
Spoon in the custard and spread out with a spoon leaving 2 cm around the edges.
Cut all the lychees into 4 pieces each and place 75% of them on top of the custard.
Spoon the remaining cake batter over the lychees to cover completely.
Place the remaining lychees on the top scattered.
Bake in the oven for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until cooked.
Let the cake cool completely in the tin, then transfer onto a plate
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.