Recipe: Lemon and coconut syrup cake

Serves 8

This Lemon and coconut syrup cake with mango, pineapple and passionfruit can be made a day ahead. We used a 28cm star-shaped cake pan (from The Essential Ingredient). Any 7-cup capacity cake pan could be used instead. Cooking times may vary.

1 large mango, peeled, thinly sliced
½ large pineapple, peeled, thinly sliced
Pulp of 4 passionfruit
Double cream, to serve

Cake
165g butter, softened
2/3 cup (140g) caster sugar
1 tsp finely grated lemon rind
2 eggs, separated
2/3 cup (70g) desiccated coconut
1 cup (150g) self-raising flour, sifted
2/3 cup (160ml) buttermilk

Syrup
2 lemons, 1 zested
1½ cups (330g) sugar
¾ cup (185ml) water

1. To make the cake, preheat oven to 180°C. Grease cake pan and line base with baking paper. Use an electric mixer to beat butter, sugar and lemon rind until pale and creamy. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Stir in coconut, flour and buttermilk in 2 batches. Use electric mixer to whisk egg whites until soft peaks form. Use a metal spoon to gently fold into cake mixture in 2 batches. Spoon mixture into prepared pan and smooth the surface. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. 
2. For syrup, squeeze lemons to make ¼ cup of juice. Combine sugar, water, lemon rind and juice in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until sugar dissolves. Cook, without stirring, for 3 minutes or until syrup thickens a little. Reserve ¼ cup (60ml) syrup; pour remainder over hot cake. Cool in pan.
3. Combine mango, pineapple and passionfruit with reserved syrup in a medium bowl. Serve with slices of cake and double cream.

Recipes & food preparation: Cynthia Black. Styling: Amber Keller. Photography: Scott Hawkins.