EMILY DICKINSON'S COCONUT CAKE

Emily Dickinson by Nicole DeClerck

I have a poem coming out in the spring in the American journal Prairie Schooner. It's called 'Miss Emily Dickinson's Coconut Cake' and is based on Dickinson's recipe and a little on her life. I've been a fan since I was very young. When I workshopped the poem at my writing group, I made the cake for our tea break. I've made it again today, so here is the recipe.

Emily Dickinson's Coconut Cake

This makes a lovely, simple, light cake. The recipe was adapted by some ED fans to suit modern weights/measures etc. I decided to use the American measurements as I own a set of measuring cups and am leaving them that way here. If you don't have measuring cups, be careful with the weights/volume. There's a conversion chart here.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup dessicated coconut

2 cups flour (I used half self-raising, half wholemeal spelt)

1 cup sugar (I used light brown muscovado)

½ cup butter (I used Pure marg)

½ cup milk

2 eggs

½ tsp bread soda

1 tsp cream of tartar

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180C

Line an 8" square cake tin on the bottom, grease the sides

Mix butter and sugar

Add beaten eggs and milk

Sieve the flour, bread soda and cream of tartar and mix

Add the coconut and mix

Bake for 30 minutes

Cool in tin for 10 minutes before turning out

OPTIONAL

I have also made this cake with raspberries. If you want to do this add in 150g of frozen raspberries with the coconut.

Coconut Cake with Raspberries

RASPBERRY VEGAN LOAF

Raspberries are in season and I’ve been craving them in a cake for a few weeks. I wanted a simple recipe, so I’ve made one up based on several different fruity cake recipes. I’ve used one of my cool new paper loaf tin liners as I’m fed up greasing tins.

As you can see, the fruit fell to the bottom. It's still very tasty but it means the mixture may have been too liquidy, too slack. Solution? I will have to be more rigorous measuring the soya milk next time - maybe use a bit less to make a thicker batter that will suspend the fruit properly. I could also dust the raspberries in flour to hold them in place.


Raspberry Vegan Loaf

50ml veg oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
2tsp NoEgg mixed with 2tblsps water or 2 eggs, lightly beaten, for non vegans
100ml soya milk
175g spelt flour
2 tsp baking powder
75g light brown sugar
1 tsp salt
125g raspberries

• Preheat oven to 180˚C
• Grease a 2lb loaf tin (or use a snazzy paper loaf tin liner!)
• Combine the oil, lemon juice, NoEgg mix and milk in a jug
• Mix the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl.
• Add the milky mix to the flour mix and stir
• Fold in the raspberries.
• Empty batter into loaf tin and bake for an hour
• Test with a skewer
• Let it cool in the tin on a wire rack