Plum and coconut cake

Babiche Martens

For this gluten-free plum and coconut cake, I used plums bought from a stall on the side of the road. There are more varieties of plums than any other stonefruit and any would be perfect in this cake. The mixture may seem a little dry, but the plums will produce juice during cooking to moisten the cake. You will find coconut flour in the health-food section of your local supermarket or in a specialty health store.

For the cake

150 g	Coconut flour (Main)
80 g	Ground almonds
120 g	Sugar
½ tsp	Mixed spice
1 tsp	Baking soda
1 ¼ cups	Soy milk
1 tsp	Vanilla
3 Tbsp	Coconut oil, softened
1 Tbsp	White vinegar
1 ½ cups	Plums, chopped (Main)

For the icing

1 cup	Icing sugar
1 cup	Desiccated coconut
2 Tbsp	Coconut oil
2 Tbsp	Lemon juice
¼ cup	Dried plums, to garnish
¼ cup	Desiccated coconut, to garnish

Directions

1. Preheat an oven to 170C. Line a 22cm tin with baking paper.
2. In a large bowl combine the flour, almonds, sugar, spice and baking soda.
3. Whisk together the soy milk, vanilla, oil, and vinegar. Pour into the dry ingredients and gently stir. Fold through the plums.
4. Tip the mixture into the tin and flatten the top with the back of a spoon. The mixture is quite dry, don't be alarmed. Place into the oven for 40-45 minutes until lightly browned. Remove and cool in the tin.
5. To make the icing - mix the icing sugar, coconut, coconut oil and lemon juice together well. Spread on the cooled cake and decorate with dried plums and toasted coconut.
6. You can buy dried fruit, but it is fun to dry your own in the oven. I sprinkled these slices of plum with sugar as they were a little tart, and then dried them overnight on a baking tray at 50C. If they are really crispy and dry, try blending them to a powder.

tip

Check out Ray McVinnie's video on'How to make chocolate shards'