River Cottage Bounty Bar Cake

The delivery man came today.
And we all know what that means, right?

A parcel from Amazon.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

In today's parcel was 'River Cottage Handbook No. 8 - Cakes' and Paula Deen's 'The Deen family cookbook'.
Don't ya just love Amazon?!
(Yes, I know, I know, I pay for them, they don't deliver them out of the goodness of their hearts, but still.....)

Flicking through the River Cottage book, the first recipes that caught me eye were the Bounty cake and a golden syrup cake, swoon......we'll leave the golden syrup cake for another day - today it's the turn of the

BOUNTY BAR CAKE

For the cake:
50g dessicated coconut
150 ml coconut milk, or ordinary milk
150g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
150g caster sugar
150g butter, softened
2 eggs

For the topping:
125g chocolate (I used half dark and half milk)
125g creme fraiche or yoghurt

1. The first thing you need to do, a couple of hours before you make the cake, is to soak the dessicated coconut in the milk and set aside. This is to re-hydrate the coconut. I used ordinary milk, but added 1tsp of coconut flavouring for a really coconutty flavour.

2. Mix together the flour, sugar and cocoa powder (I never bother sifting, a few seconds dry mixing in my KA is equivalent to sifting I reckon!)

3. Add the eggs, the milky coconut and the softened butter and beat until light and creamy.
I need to confess - at this step the cake batter almost didn't get as far as the cake tin! It's delicious...like a melted Bounty bar!

4. Pour into a buttered and lined 1 ltr loaf tin.

5. Cook at 180deg. C (160 deg. C- fan oven) for about 40 mins.

6. Leave to cool and top with the chocolate creme-fraiche topping, which is made by adding either yoghurt or creme fraiche to melted, cooled chocolate.

Changes/tips:
* I added a teaspoon of coconut flavouring to both the cake mix and to the frosting, I wanted it really, really coconutty!

*I added a little dessicated coconut also to the frosting, for texture and taste.

* My cake took 45 minutes at 160deg. C in my fan oven.

* I decorated with chopped up Bounty bar, instead of chocolate buttons as the book suggests.

* I used yoghurt this time for the topping. Next time I'll try it with creme fraiche to see if there's a big difference.

This was a beautiful cake, moist, chocolatey and delicious. I'll definitely make it again!

Recipe adapted from River Cottage Handbook No.8 by Pam Corbin.