I have a weakness for army-style catering: the bigger the pan, the happier I am, and there is something particularly satisfying about baking a cake in a roasting pan. This is my regular for the cake stall at the school summer fete, but those whose lives are serenely untouched by the demands of the PTA can wheel it out, with an easily assembled salad of roughly chunked papaya, mango, pineapple and spooned-out passionfruit, dressed with a squeeze or two of lime, to provide a Beano-portioned pudding for expansive parties on hot summer days or to produce atmosphere of same.
for the cake:
350g soft unsalted butter
350g caster sugar
6 eggs
400g self-raising flour (or plain flour with 3–4 teaspoons baking powder)
50g cornflour
1 teaspoon coconut essence
100g creamed coconut cut from a slab put into a measuring jug and filled up to the 300ml mark with freshly boiled water
for the icing:
1kg icing sugar, sieved
approx. 150ml milk
30g unsalted butter
1 teaspoon coconut essence
6–8 tablespoons desiccated coconut to sprinkle (optional)
33 x 24 x 6cm tin or roasting pan, sides and bottom lined with baking parchment
Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas mark 4.
I make this coconut sponge in the Kitchen Aid mixer, but use whatever method you want. Just cream the butter and sugar first, until pale and light, then beat in one egg at a time, after which dollop in, bit by bit after each egg, the flour mixed with the corn-flour. When all is combined, stir in the coconut essence. While you’ve been doing this the creamed coconut should have melted in the water to form a liquid; give it a quick whisk and beat it into the batter. It will be a fairly runny mix, so be prepared to pour rather than scrape into the lined tin.
Bake for 45 minutes or until the sponge is springy and coming away at the sides. Sit the tin on a wire rack for about 20 minutes and then turn out on to the rack to cool.
Once it’s cool, you can get on with the icing, which is a simple enough affair. Melt all the ingredients except the desiccated coconut in a saucepan over low to medium heat, stirring every now and again with a wooden spoon, and when you have a cohesive, gleaming mixture, all butter melted, pour it over the top of the cake. The icing should be thick enough to cover the top in a smooth white blanket and not dribble off the sides, so add more milk or icing sugar if it’s either too thick or too runny. Sprinkle the desiccated coconut on top of the cake – if you care to – while the icing is still slightly wet. And, for maximum aesthetic pleasure, leave this slab whole and uncut, iced and almost blindingly, totally mesmerically white, like summer snow, until you actually serve it.
Makes 24 squares.