Vanilla, Coconut and Cinnamon Cake with Fragrant Icing

I guess I got a bit excited yesterday when the first baking recipe I created worked well. So, I decided to try out some different flavours and use the fragrant sweet spices I love so much for the icing. (I also made a bit more icing than last time. Feel free to make less if you prefer.)

I think I will take these to work to share around - Mark and I cannot possibly eat so much cake without help!

I'm really enjoying experimenting with baking, so I am going to try some different methods and combinations. One combination I really want to work with is chocolate and raspberry as it is one of my favourites.

Ingredients
1 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup self raising flour sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup milk
40g butter melted
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
120g butter at room temperature
1-4 teapsoons fragrant sweet spices

Method

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees. Grease and flour a cake loaf tin. Place the coconut, flour, sugar and cinnamon and baking powder in a bowl and mix to combine. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and mix in the milk. Add the butter and then the eggs and vanilla, stirring well after each new addition.

The mixture is fairly wet - this is fine. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack and then turn onto a plate.

To make the icing, beat the butter and icing sugar together until thick and creamy (use a large bowl as it will fly everywhere). Mix the fragrant sweet spices through and spread on to the cooled cake.