Coconut Lime Cake

This cake is not very photogenic. Its best features are:

a) a lovely crumb, and

b) green frosting, courtesy of some food coloring.

I hope you can at least see the texture. The green doesn't show up so well in the picture.

There's no great story about it, either, except that I was looking to use up some zucchini and some limes, and once I had this idea I just had to make it!

I started off thinking I could make zucchini brownies. I'd noticed I still had some coconut flour in my cabinet, and I remembered that the recipe I just linked to uses both coconut flour and zucchini. So that might be a good option to make. Then I thought the brownies would be good with frosting, and since the recipe uses coconut flour, it reminded me that I'd recently seen a cupcake recipe for coconut lime cupcakes. And I had some limes to use up, too! I bought them and then couldn't remember what they were for. (I think they were a mistake.) But coconut + lime + chocolate seemed like too many different flavors, so I subbed out the chocolate and made some other substitutions to give it a stronger coconut flavor. Eventually it got to be different enough to count as its own recipe, so I am sharing it.

One thing you need to know in advance is that for this recipe you'll need to buy canned coconut milk and then leave it - open - in the fridge overnight. The fatty part will sink to the bottom, so you'll have coconut water on top and something almost as thick as butter on the bottom. You'll use both parts in the recipe.

Ingredients

Cake

1/2 cup zucchini, shredded
1/3 cup thick coconut milk (the part that sunk to the bottom)
1 cup coconut water
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 tbsp flaxmeal (i.e., ground flax seed)
1/2 cup canola oil (you can use coconut oil, but it's higher in calories, and this has enough coconut flavor without it)
3/4 cup white flour
1 cup coconut flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup sugar

Frosting

1/2 cup earth balance (can also use thick coconut milk)
2 cups confectioner's sugar
2 Tbsp lime juice (about 1 lime)
lime zest from 1 lime
1/2 tsp vanilla
green food coloring

Preheat oven to 350, spray an 8" brownie pan.

Mix first six ingredients (through oil) in a medium bowl. Let sit for at least 5 minutes.
Mix dry ingredients very well, in a larger bowl. Pour wet into dry and stir well.

It should be thick but still pretty wet. Thin enough to pour into the pan, and you should be able to spread it easily, but it won't spread by itself. You can adjust the consistency with water or flour if it's not right. Pour into greased brownie pan and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until the top is just starting to brown. Let cool well before frosting.

For the frosting, mix the earth balance (or butter) with a hand mixer until creamy, then add the other ingredients, minus the food coloring. Add sugar until it is thick enough to stand in peaks. Then add the food coloring. When the cake has fully cooled, spread the frosting on it.