Tropical cake

I love baking banana bread so when I saw this banana bread tin in America I knew I had to buy it.  As soon as I got home, I bought some bananas to ripen. However, I was too impatient to wait for them to ripen as I was so excited to use this tin! Plus my brother was making an unexpected visit and said if I wanted to bake a cake (he knows me so well!), he would take it with him and share it with his colleagues.  Of course I couldn't say no - I'm always looking for someone to eat my bakes and it was the perfect opportunity to try out my new tin. 

This tin inspired my cake which I made up as I went along. I wanted to use ingredients that I had and that had a tropical feel as that's what this tin says to me. Admittedly, I had to buy the mango and dessicated coconut (as I don't like coconut) but I had everything else at home. 

The cake was moist and flavourful and smelt very tropical.  It's a bit like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates - you never know what you are going to get next. Each bite of the cake had a different taste of the fruits - the first bite, I tasted banana and coconut, then pineapple and then mangoes.  I used a lot of fruit in this cake and I would recommend halving the fruit amount and increasing the flour if you prefer less 'bits' in your cake.  It also made a lot of cake as I managed to get 1 fancy cake as shown above and another medium sized bundt cake. 

I am entering these to simple and in season hosted by Ren from Fabulicious food 

and again (I know!) to my own AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes this month as the letter is M .... for mangoes!

PS apologies for the awful lighting in the photos - didn't realise until it was too late to fix!

 my brand new tin 

 banana, coconut milk, pineapple, dessicated coconut and mango 

 love the bright yellow colour and it smelt amazing! 

 adding the white ingredients - coconut milk and dessicated coconut 

 ready to go in the oven 

 hurray it came out of the tin like a dream

 love the detail :)

 'extra' batter which made a mini bundt cake 

 you can see the chunks of fruit in the cake 

An original recipe by bakingaddict 

125mls vegetable oil

200g brown sugar (increase this if you prefer a sweeter bake)

1 banana, mashed

1 mango - peeled and chopped into chunks 

260g pineapple, chopped into chunks (you can also use fresh pineapple)

3 eggs

100g dessicated coconut

250g self raising flour

165mls coconut milk

variations - you can add some spice (nutmeg or cinnamon would go well I think) or some nuts for crunch but reduce the fruit amount otherwise there will be no batter! 

• Preheat the oven to 180C. 
• In a large bowl, whisk the oil and sugar.
• Whisk in the eggs, one at a time until well mixed. 
• Mix in the yellow fruits - banana, mango and pineapple.
• Then the white ingredients - the coconut milk and dessicated coconut and mix well.
• Finally fold in the flour.
• Pour into prepared cake tin and bake in the oven for approximately 45-55 minutes (large tin) or 30-35 minutes (small tin).
• The cake should be golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean. 
• Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out to a wire rack to cool completely.