Coconut Lemon Drizzle Cake

This cake is an absolute winner for dinner parties. Using the whole lemon gives it such a wonderfully moist texture, and it’s gluten and dairy-free too. Although it does use a lot of sugar, the lemons and coconut are incredibly nutritious so you don’t have to feel two bad about having a second slice. I like to serve it with some raspberries, but strawberries would be great too – or some coconut or Greek yogurt even.

Ingredients:

3 medium-sized lemons
3 eggs
1¼ cups caster sugar (or coconut sugar if you want to make it paleo/refined sugar-free)
½  cup almond flour

½ cup of desiccated coconut
1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp of vanilla extract (optional)

Butter or coconut oil (for the dairy-free version) for greasing the tin

For the drizzle:

Juice of ½ a lemon

½ cup of icing sugar (or caster sugar works too)

Method:

1. Simmer the lemons until soft enough to slide a knife through (about 30 mins) or alternatively, you could microwave them for about 5 minutes on a high heat. Then when they have cooled, cut them in half, take out as many of the pips as you can, and blitz the entire fruit in a blender - the pith and everything.

2. Preheat the oven to 190ºC and grease a 21cm / 8 inch springform tin. (springform = a cake with with removable base and sides)

3. Combine the eggs, almond flour and sugar and baking powder, and then whisk in the lemon.

 4. Pour into the greased tin and bake for about an hour - but as the top can brown or burn quite quickly, after 30 minutes I removed the tin from the oven and covered it with foil before popping it back in for another 25 mins.

5. Once a skewer comes out clean, remove from the oven and let it cool in the tin. I actually think these kind of cakes taste even better the day after they are baked.

6. For the drizzle – mix heat the icing sugar and the lemon juice on a low heat until all the sugar has dissolved, then pour onto the cake and enjoy!