Coconut Sponge Cake

This coconut sponge cake recipe is really close to my heart. My grandmother was a big baker when I was a child. She has 5 grandchildren and we all loved everything she has ever cooked or baked in the kitchen. Unfortunately, today we are all adults, and we live far away from each other, but the memories of these flavours won’t fade even with the time or distance. 

I made a couple of changes in her original recipe to make it healthier and vegan friendly, but it worked out just as good as the one I loved 20 years ago. 

Try it with different milk than almond if you prefer or you can even swap spelt flour to whole wheat or gluten free flour mix. You might need to adjust some of the measurements though depending the type of flour used. 

Ingredients:

For the sponge:

250 g whole grain spelt flour

6 g baking powder (half sachet)

75 g xylitol or 10 g stevia

40 g coconut oil

200 ml almond milk

Zest of half lemon

For the chocolate layer:

5 tbsp cocoa

50 g coconut oil

75 g xylitol or 10 g stevia

150 ml almond milk

+ 120 g desiccated coconut to cover

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Mix the flour the sugar and the baking powder in a large mixing bowl, then add the almond milk, coconut oil and the lemon zest and mix carefully. 

Take a baking tray, lined with baking parchment, and pour in the sponge mix.

Bake for 30 minutes and let it cool down.

When our sponge has cooled down, cut it into even pieces. 

Place the almond milk, cocoa, sugar, and the coconut oil in a pot for the chocolate layer and cook until the sugar dissolved and all nicely melted together. 

Plunge the sponge pieces into the chocolate, then the desiccated coconut. Enjoy!