Coconut Yogurt Cake on a Lazy Sunday

You can’t beat Wellington on a good day, or so they say. 

Last Sunday dawned absolutely gorgeous and sparkling, cruelly mocking those of us who had partaken of the adult beverages while attempting to scream the Welsh to victory over the bloody French.  Our vocal support was to no avail – the silly Coqs kept the mighty Dragons down, albeit only by one point, and our heads were slightly the worse for wear after our own efforts in front of the TV screen.  So the only logical thing to do was throw back the curtains and let the sun shine in. 

Spice is doing the Kitty Paddle during her sun bath.

It took us at least an hour to get ourselves mobilised and out the door, still in a zombie state, but a little buoyed up by this Yogurt Coconut Loaf from Allyson Gofton’s book Bake.

Sweet, sweet hangover food.

My chauffeur/husband dropped me off at the Frank Kitts Underground Market for a wee bit of retail therapy, and look at the pretties I found!!

Some recovery was needed after that strenuous shopping expedition, so we parked ourselves on the waterfront and stared for a while.

So preeeettyyyyy.

Eventually, we had this conversation:

C: Huh, the water’s is really shallow.

J: Yeah, you’re right.  Guess the tide’s out.

C: I can see the bottom.

J: Lots of rocks.

C: Hnnnhhhhh....

Riveting, I know.  We’ll write the great American/Kiwi novel one day, we will! 

Stare at this long enough and it becomes a headache.

Out of sheer laziness and the desire to stay outside/not go home, we took a little drive up the Brooklyn hill to the wind turbine.  Working in the energy industry, we’re both kind of nerds about alternative power.

Wellington on a good day!

The rest of Sunday was much more exciting what with the All Blacks beating dirty old Aussie, but I’ve already told you about that!

Yoghurt and coconut loaf

from Allyson Gofton’s Bake

• 1½ cups caster sugar
• 1½ cups self-raising flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ¾ cup desiccated coconut
• 1 cup thick natural unsweetened yoghurt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 Tbsp dark rum
• 3 Tbsp light oil

Passionfruit icing

• 25g butter, melted
• Pulp from 2 ripe passionfruit OR lemon juice
• 1¼-1½ cups icing sugar, sifted

1. Sift the sugar, flour and baking powder into a bowl, stir in the coconut and make a well in the centre.
2. Beat together the yoghurt, eggs, rum and oil and pour into the well in the dry ingredients. Fold into the dry ingredients.
3. Turn the mixture into a well-greased and lined 23cm x 13cm loaf tin.
4. Bake the loaf in a 180°C oven for 50 minutes or until a skewer inserted comes out clean. 
5. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a cake rack to cool. When cold, spread the top of the loaf with passionfruit icing and serve in thick slices.  I didn't have any passionfruit around the house, so I just used some lemon juice to counter the sweetness of the icing sugar and that worked quite well.
6. To make the icing, mix the melted butter with the passionfruit pulp. Gradually beat in the sifted icing sugar to make a smooth, slightly runny icing.  Pour the icing over and enjoy!