Colleen, blogger and foodie behind browniegirl, baked her tried-and-test sponge cake with one new ingredient…KAPRUKA Organic Virgin Coconut Oil and said it made a delicious difference.

“I will never use ordinary cooking oil again in my baking. Ever!” she writes in her blog post. “The taste of coconut is oh so subtle and the texture of the cake is light, slightly moist with a delightful crumb.”

Image credit: browniegirl

Give Browniegirl’s salted caramel and vanilla bean sponge cake a try…

Ingredients:

• 60ml Coconut Oil (I used Kapruka’s Organic Virgin Coconut Oil)
• 250ml Milk (I used a ratio ¾ milk to ¼ water)
• 500ml Cake flour – sifted twice
• 4 Jumbo free range eggs
• 500ml White granulated sugar
• 10ml Baking powder
• 5ml Vanilla essence – I used the seeds from ½ Vanilla Pod
• Pinch salt
• 5ml Brown vinegar

Method:

• Preheat Oven to 180 o C
• Grease, flour & line 3 x 20cm cake pans with baking paper
• Boil oil & milk together (I do it in the microwave)
• Beat eggs & sugar together till pale & thick (about 5min on high)
• Add the vinegar & vanilla & beat in
• Sift flour, baking powder & salt together
• Fold gently into beaten egg mixture
• Add hot milk & oil mixture
• Fold all together gently
• Divide between the prepared pans
• Bake for 20-25 minutes until a cake tester or cocktail stick comes out clean
• Turn out onto wire cooling racks, peel off paper & allow to cool completely before frosting

Salted caramel & vanilla bean frosting

• 250g Unsalted butter
• 500g Icing sugar (sifted twice with a small pinch of salt)
• 50ml Cold Milk
• 10ml Hot Water
• ½ Vanilla Bean – seeds scraped out (keep the used pod in a bottle of sugar for baking)

Frosting method:

Boil a can of condensed milk in a deep saucepan (uncovered) for 1 ½ hours (make sure the can is always covered well with water and top up with boiling water from kettle as needed). Allow to cool completely.

Beat the butter, milk & vanilla seeds until almost white and fluff. Slowly beat in the icing sugar, bit by bit until it is fairly thick. Add the hot water and beat until fluffy and a good spreading consistency. Stir a sprinkling of Maldon Salt flakes into the caramel. Place one cake layer onto a plate. Spread a thin layer of caramel onto the cake. Spread a layer of icing onto the caramel. Spread a thin layer of caramel onto the second layer and place it caramel side down onto the bottom layer. Ice the cake as desired. For the caramel vanilla swirls I placed some caramel and icing side by side in a piping bag and squeezed out swirls onto the cake.

Colleen says there is no limit with what you can do with this basic recipe. You change the flavour by adding grated orange or lemon zest, replacing some flour with cocoa or espresso coffee granules to make a coffee cake. The recipe also works well for cupcakes and makes about 36 muffin sized cupcakes.

Have whipped up something delicious with coconut oil? We’d love to hear about it. Submit it your recipe and a link to your blog to chefkapruka@gmail.com or post your recipes on our Facebook fan page.

Posted: Monday, May 3rd, 2010 @ 4:53 pm
Categories: Recipes.
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