Strawberry, Lime and Coconut Squares

Tesco and I have an uneasy truce.

It's the best supermarket in our town, but that's not saying much. It's either that or Marks and Spencer (too expensive) or Sainsbury's (less than half the floorspace). Sometimes it plays a blinder and gives me amazing offers. But, seriously, what shop in a student city runs out of:

a) blueberries
b) single limes
c) minced beef
d) packs of 6 sausages

Typically, I had made the trip specially and was not about to make another one. So I now have 6 more limes left to use, and blueberries became some reduced strawberries. I sort of prefer it, I think; I've never been a huge blueberry fan anyway.

So, Tesco, you may have won this time. Though having to queue for 15 minutes is not so cool. You can never tell if people are stocking up for a zombie apocalypse or if it is always just that busy in there.

Anyway, with my tales of substitutions and bulk buying of limes done (seriously, what am I going to do with 6 limes?) we can move onto the recipe and my favourite new recipe book. Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood called to me for days. "Buy me" it yodelled from Amazon's pages, "and I shall make cake a healthy treat......."

Which is why, as I write this, I am stuffing my face with an absolutely ginormous slice of this cake and marvelling that it's under 300 calories. I mean, wow. It doesn't taste worthy. It tastes fruity and gorgeous and is incredibly moist. Harry Eastwood is on to a real winner; I can't wait to make more recipes. And the girly-girly cloying personification of all the cakes that so many of the reviewers have loathed? I like it. It's cute. It makes the book nice to read cover to cover again and again.

It also comes with calories tables, which makes me happy, especially when I see the numbers in them.

Anyway, make and enjoy this. The next post is going to be Key Lime Pie. The post after that may well be a Cosmopolitan Cocktail. I'll STILL have 3 more limes to go after that... On the plus side, no scurvy?

Strawberry, Lime and Coconut Squares
This recipe is mildly adapted from "Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache", in which Harry Eastwood replaces butter with vegetables and you end up with magic cakes. I'm not kidding. They taste lush and you can eat more while gaining less. Win? Yes. Just don't tell people you've put courgette in their cake until after they've eaten it. Or why not just not tell them? They'd never guess.


For the Base
80g caster sugar
20g unsalted butter
Pinch salt
150g dessicated coconut


For the sponge
150-200g Strawberries, Quartered and then chopped 3 more times (or basically chopped into small, blueberry sized pieces)
150g courgette, topped, tailed, peeled and finely grated (I used one fairly large courgette that weighed about 200g with the skin on, and still had some left to spare)
Juice and Zest of 2 limes
120g plain or rice flour (Harry Eastwood has tested all the recipes with both and actually says rice flour is better!)
2 medium eggs
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder (I used 3 large ones because my baking powder is oooold now)
150g caster sugar

For the topping
Icing sugar, to sprinkle

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 22cm (8 inch) square tin. (Harry recommended oil, I would just go back to greasing with butter in the future, it sticks to the tin better...)

2. Melt the butter and sugar for the base in a saucepan until you have a paste. Place the dessicated coconut into a bowl and pour this mixture over the top, mixing well with a spoon, palette knife and/or your fingertips.


3. Press the base into the lined tin and press down with a spoon to pack it firmly. Place into the oven for 10-15 minutes, until fairly brown.

4. While this is in, whisk the eggs and sugar together until light.

5. Add the zest of the limes and the grated courgette (I grated the latter into a separate bowl for measuring purposes... and it's not that easy) and mix thoroughly again (I was using my hand mixer).

6. Add the flour, salt, baking powder and lime juice. Beat again until combined (yup, it says beat, not fold. I had no problem with the cake being dense despite just basically chucking everything in).


7. Pour the batter over the base (I hope you've been keeping an eye on the time, the intermediate steps took longer than the 12 or so minutes it took my base to cook) and then sprinkle the chopped strawberries over the top.

8. Cook for around 30 minutes.

9. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes.

10. Sift some icing sugar over the top and slice into 9 pieces in the tin before removing the slices.


CALORIES PER SLICE: 262