Feijoa and coconut cakes with lemon thyme toffee drizzle

This is the perfect cake recipe for on the road cooking. There is no need for beaters, mixers or flash devices. Rice Bran oil replaces butter and can be incorporated into the sugar with just an old fashion whisk.

We like to be able to taste the lemon quite strongly in the toffee drizzle and the lemon frosting so the bigger and juicier the lemons, the better!

We also love to bake these in small rectangular tins but you can also use one 20cm cake tin if that is your preference.

Cake

• 1 cup rice bran oil
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• Zest of 2 lemons and juice of one
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 2 tsp baking powder
• Pinch salt
• 3 large ripe feijoas, peeled and chopped

Lemon, thyme toffee syrup

• 1/2 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• Generous handful of fresh thyme 

Lemon frosting

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tsp soft butter
• 2 Tbsp boiling water
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Juice of 1/2 lemon 

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 175º
2. In a medium bowl whisk the sugar into the oil for a few minutes.
3. Add the eggs one at a time and continue whisking them until creamy and sugar dissolved. This should only take a couple of minutes (if you have access to a hand beater you can use this instead of a whisk).
4. Add the zest and juice of lemons then sift in the flour and baking powder.
5. Add coconut, salt and feijoas and gently fold mixture together making sure that ingredients are well incorporated but do not over mix.
6. Spray your choice of baking tin with canola oil and then fill 3/4 fill with the batter.
7. Bake at 175º for 30 - 45 minutes (depending on cake tin size) or until skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. 

Lemon toffee drizzle

Heat the sugar, lemon juice and thyme over a medium heat until sugar starts to darken. Take off the heat and sieve the mixture to remove the thyme. 

Lemon frosting

Put icing sugar in a bowl with butter in the middle. Pour boiling water over butter to melt, and whisk until butter has been incorporated. Add all other ingredients and whisk until lump free. 

To assemble

1. When cakes are cool, remove from tin and sit on tray. Drizzle warm toffee onto cakes.
2. When the toffee has hardened, drizzle with the lemon frosting.
3. Serve with a sprig of thyme.

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