My fiance and I watched Top Chef Masters the other night. It was the episode where the chefs cook a special meal for returned military personnel and the partners of those personnel tell the chefs what their partners favourite foods are. It got my fiance and I talking about what we would tell a chef to cook for each other in the same situation.
It was easy for me to choose what my fiance would want – sausages, chicken schnitzel, lettuce salad, potato chips with garlic aioli, orange self saucing pudding and apple pie with lashings of cream. When it came to my fiance choosing what I would like the only thing he could identify, other than my dream dessert of anything chocolate with salted caramel sauce, was ingredients I like. The list included oven roasted tomatoes, basil, garlic, caramelised onions, roasted pumpkin, parsnip, raspberries, lemons, baby spinach and mushrooms. Strangely enough, despite my love of food, I don’t actually have a favourite “dish”.
Maybe I’m greedy, or maybe I’m just indecisive, but I couldn’t pick one dish that stands out as a favourite for me. Or maybe I haven’t discovered “the” dish yet.
One of the good things about food blogging is the great variety of foods you get to eat. Always in search of new recipes and foods, I am always trying new things. Some turn out fantastically and get added to our regular repertoire and others are disappointing. But through it all you always learn something. You learn new techniques and new flavour combinations you would have never tried before.
Mango and coconut is a wonderful flavour combination, a taste of tropical paradise. So it was with this combination in mind I made this Mango Coconut Cake with Lime Icing.
Mangoes are so lovely at the moment that I couldn’t help but want to use them in a recipe. I also wanted to see if I could get my mango hating fiance to enjoy mango. And guess what? It worked! This Mango Coconut Cake is a lovely light crumbly and moist cake which combines mango pieces, shredded coconut and coconut milk. A slice of tropical paradise.
So tell me, if you had to design the perfect meal for a chef to cook for you, what would it be?
Mango & Coconut Cake
Ingredients
- 110 g of butter softened
- 220 g of caster sugar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 185 g of plain flour sifted, all purpose
- 1 1/4 teaspoons of baking powder sifted
- 165 ml of coconut milk
- 2 mangos diced
- 1/2 cop of shredded coconut
- LIME ICING
- 1 cup of icing sugar
- 1 tablespoon of melted butter
- juice and zest of 1 lime
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 160 celsius (325 Fahrenheit) and grease a 20 cm (8 inch) spring form tin.
- Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and beat until light and creamy.
- Gradually add the eggs and beat well between each addition.
- Fold through the flour, coconut, baking powder, vanilla extract and coconut milk until combined.
- Scatter the mango through the cake mixture and fold through. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking tin and bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer. Let the cake rest in the tin for 10 minutes before placing on a wire rack to cool.
- When the cake is cool make the icing. Combine the icing sugar, melted butter and juice and zest of the lime until combined and you have a spreadable mixture, without being too runny. Spread over the top of the cake and top with slivers of mango and toasted coconut.
That cake looks so good! I love coconut and mango, so will try it one of these days for sure.
Like you, I don’t really have a favorite dish, just lots of favorite ingredients.
What a great tropical cake! Looks delicious!
Thank you Melanie 😀
yummy — love the tropical flavors 🙂
Oh Yum this looks great. I dont think I could choose 1 thing either. The colour of those mangoes is amazing
Thank you so much Tania 😀
I’m absolutely with you, I don’t think I could ever choose a favourite dish…there are far too many which suit such different occasions! (I couldn’t choose a favourite film, colour, TV programme either). Also like you, I love salted caramel and chocolate, but it’s nice to think outside your normal favourite zones sometimes, and mango and coconut sounds like a pretty good place to start! Gorgeous recipe.
Thanks 😀
ummm… delicious!! I have two mangoes that need to be used up if we don’t eat them tonight… and I now know what to do with them!!
If you do make the cake Shellie let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy it 😀
Mangoes really are gorgeous atm, made myself a mango lassi this morning. And I ADORE mango and coconut together, yum.
I also don’t have a favourite dish – it all depends on my mood!
love this slice of tropical paradise !
Oh I love it! A perfect cake for Spring/Summer 😀
Jennifer, I bet that cake is so moist and yummy! Just thinking about coconut and mango, I feel transported to tropical happiness:)
-E
Mango and Coconut sounds great together! Beautiful cake!
mhm yumm mango coconut cake, comforting combination of flavoures. I appreciate that I stumbled over your recipe.
Thanks for stumbling over here Helene 😀
Hey so glad to see you tried cooking with mango! Beautiful eh?
It is beautiful. I was so surprised my fiance loved it considering he hates mango. This recipe is definitely a keeper! 😀
What a beautiful cake! Perfect for this time of the year. I am munching on a mango right now!
Mangoes are so lovely at the moment aren’t they? 😀
I dont have a lot of favourite dishes either. Rather, I have a lot of fav ingredients!
This cake is so perfect! Love it.
It’s funny, it seems a lot of food bloggers don’t have a favourite dish. I guess we just love all food 😀
Mango, yum, love it! Like you, I have too many dishes and ingredients that I love… everything from fruit and vegetables to seafood, meat, poultry, and sweet things. Nothing that I could say is my all time favourite.
Like you, I have no one favourite dish, or even one favourite cuisine – it all depends upon my mood, really. Of course, I can always eat cake at any time of the day or night.
A wonderful cake! Those flavors are so heavenly.
Cheers,
Rosa
I love love love mango I know its mango season is Aus but not here 🙁 Bookmarked this for the next season 🙂
Sorry to be taunting you when mangoes are not in season there 🙁 Hopefully mango season will come around soon.
I can imagine myself in a tropical beach resort eating this moist cake. I have been wanting to try this flavor combination for the longest time. You’ve given me the push I needed!
What a wonderful combo..do you get mangoes still? Am sure your mango hating fiance would have fallen for this cake 🙂
Yes, it’s mango season here now as we are in the middle of summer. 😀 And yes, my fiance did love this cake. In fact, we normally send the leftovers of my baking into his work, but this time he deliberately didn’t take this cake in because he wanted it for himself!! 😀
I’m like you, I don’t have a favorite dish. All my favorites are ingredients and chocolate and salted caramel are high up on my list too!
Mango and coconut is an excellent combination! Your cake looks absolutely scrumptious! Especially the lemon icing! Just perfect.
it doesn’t sound that exciting but i used to eat this dish in Dublin at a trendy restaurant called ‘Odessa’s’ called Quorn Quesadillas. Quorn is a meat substitute that you can now get here in Australia (yay!) and it was seriously delicious. Came with a mango salad.
i also love seafood so maybe just some oysters and a fresh seafood platter – i never know what to do with seafood so i definitely prefer to eat it when i’m out rather than cook at home.
I’m not familiar with Quorn, I will have to check it out 😀
i love it. i used to eat it all the time when i lived in the uk and ireland. it has only hit the supermarket shelves in Australia in the past few months. i buy from Coles, it is just in the frozen section.it is made from mushrooms which i much prefer over eating alot of soy.