Lime and coconut cake, glazed tofu and mistaken identity

On my recent In My Kitchen post I showed you a haul of lemons and limes from our trees in the backyard.  You might not have noticed that they were all yellow.  I am never sure when green limes are ripe and often they are yellow by the time they come off the tree.  Which means that when stormy weather blows the fruit off the tree I might get my lemons and limes confused.  It brings up awkward moments when I think I have made a lime and coconut cake but wonder if it is in fact a lemon and coconut cake.

Of course there are clues.  Opening up the fruit and finding it green usually means it is a lime.  But because I was unsure about some of the windfall fruit, I worried some of it was actually unripe lemons.  So I am now relying on the Meyer lemons having quite smooth and bright yellow skins to tell them apart.  However when I made lemonade this week I did find myself opening a lemon only to find it is a lime.

You might attribute my uncertainty to my decision to whip up this cake quickly after school when I was helping Sylvia with readers and ukelele practice and getting dinner ready.  It was that easy to put together quickly but afterwards I worried I had confused the lemons and limes.

My mum visited the next day and had a slice of cake with a cuppa.  She assured me that it was lime.  Then she had another slice and took a slice home for my dad.  Often my mum finds cakes quite sweet but she loved this one.  The cake disappeared rather quickly.

I attribute my mum's love of the cake to my decision to reduce the icing sugar by half.  It meant that the icing was more of a glaze and quite tart.  It was so thin that it dribbled down the sides and pooled at the bottom of the cake.  Possibly half the glaze would be enough.  I used a whole lime because I have lots of limes and the cake was made to use up some of them.

This is a simple old fashioned recipe.  The cake is yellow and buttery with the slight texture of coconut and that wonderful taste of coconut sprinkled in the icing.  It is the sort of cake I could imagine in my grandmothers' time, though I am not sure that limes were so common then.

And I am sneaking another recipe in here because it also has a case of mistaken identity.  I thought I would used up some cranberry sauce I have had since Christmas.  I used it in a glazed tofu that I adapted from Apricot and Orange Glazed Tofu that I made years ago.  I made it less spicy (without the chilli paste) so that Sylvia would eat it and she loved it.  We had it with some Toby's Singapore Noodles and broccoli.  The noodles were so much nicer with the tofu than eaten alone. 

It was only after I made the tofu that I discovered I had used up the rest of my mum's quince jelly instead of cranberry sauce.  So I will have to make it again and use up the cranberry sauce which is still lurking in the fridge.  Perhaps I could try it with some lime juice instead of orange juice, if only I can tell my limes apart from my lemons.

I am sending the cake to Jen's Food for this month's Credit Crunch Munch, coordinated by Fuss Free Flavours and Fab Food 4 All!  This cake uses basic pantry ingredients and fruit from my backyard.

More citrus cakes from Green Gourmet Giraffe:
Choc-lime marble cake
Chocolate marmalade cake
Citrus grape cake (v)
Cranberry mandarin syrup cake
Lemon and honey cake (gf)
Orange, lavender and almond syrup cake 

More citrus cakes from elsewhere online:
Chocolate, whole orange and almond cake (gf) - Apple and Spice
Flourless orange poppy seed cake (gf) - Chocolate and Zucchini
Gluten free lemon trickle cake (gf) - BBC Good Food
Lemon, buttermilk and black pepper cake - Laws of the Kitchen
Lemon, lavender and honey cake - Amber Rose
Lemon olive oil cake with grilled nectarines (v) - Chef Chloe
Lime coconut and olive oil cake - The Chronicles of Ms I-Hua and The Boy
Sticky lemon and yoghurt cake - The Age Good Food
Yellowman's lime banana bread - Taking Julia North

Lime and coconut cake
Slightly adapted from Frills in the Hills

Cake:
2 limes, zest and juice
50 grams dessicated coconut
175 grams butter or margarine, softened
150 grams caster sugar
175 grams self raising flour
3 eggs

Icing:
1 cup icing sugar
1 lime, zest and juice
dessicated coconut for sprinkling
extra lime zest for decoration

Grease and line a 20cm ring tin.  Preheat oven to 180 C.  Mix lime juice, zest and coconut in a small bowl.  Mix remaining ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and add coconut mixture.  Scrape mixture into prepared tin and bake for 35 to 40 minutes until golden brown and a skewer inserted in the cake comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack. 

Mix icing sugar with lime zest and juice and spread over cooled cake.  Sprinkle generously with coconut.  Scatter with extra zest.

Quince and orange glazed tofu
Adapted from Green Gourmet Giraffe
Serves 2 to 3

250g extra firm tofu 
1 tbsp oil for frying

Marinade:
1 tbsp quince jelly (or cranberry sauce)
1 tbsp tamari
juice of 1 orange
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tsp seeded mustard
1 tsp chilli paste (optional)
small pinch of black pepper

Pat tofu with a paper towel and slice into thick fingers.  Mix marinade ingredients in a shallow tub.  Place tofu in marinade for 15 minutes to overnight, depending on your timing.  Heat oil on a large frypan.  Add tofu (shake off as much marinade as possible) and fry on medium high until lightly golden brown on each side.  Add marinade carefully - the oil will splatter with the addition of liquids.  Continue to fry and turn the tofu until the marinade thickens into a glaze and the tofu is golden brown.

On the Stereo:
Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters: The Twilight Sad