Lemon, Coconut & Olive Oil Cake (GF!)

YOU GUYS. This lemon, coconut and olive oil cake might be my biggest achievement in baking so far. It is SO DELICIOUS.
 
The best part? It was all a fluke!

 
As you may have seen me mention in the posts of some of my previous baking ventures such as this Easter Hot Cross Bun Bread or this Vanilla + Matcha Green Tea Bread, I’m not naturally a baker by nature.
 
When I first became interested in cooking, I was a teenager wrapped up in a ‘strictly healthy foods only’ mentality. Traditionally, baking is not a branch of cookery renowned for it’s diet friendly recipes, so I gave it a wide berth. This meant never really bothering to dip my feet in the waters of all those beginner’s baking recipes- sponges, cupcakes and muffins never received my attention (or affections), and anything more advanced? Nope.
 
It wasn’t until years later that I left behind my fear of unhealthy foods and adopted an ‘everything in moderation’ mentality- a la the IIFYM diet. But, as with anyone’s journey from disordered eating to a place of balance, it took time. So it wasn’t surprising that I didn’t immediately put on my apron and venture over to the world of sweets and pastries.
 
Don’t get me wrong, I would treat myself to something sweet every now and again (almond croissants, I’m looking at you) but it never occurred to me to actually make any of it myself.
 
But what’s all this leading to, eh? What has it got to do with this heavenly little slice before us?
 

 
Well, it was just my way of saying that I didn’t have any idea what I was doing when I made this cake due to my aforementioned lack of baking experience but it turned out AMAZINGLY so I guess I must have the baking gene lurking around somewhere in my DNA after all and for goodness sake let’s all have a nice slice of cake to celebrate!!!
 
One thing I have always been totally on board with, is anything lemon flavoured. Oh goodness me, I just love it. Bring a lemon flavoured dessert to a garden party and there is a 99.9% chance that I will be all over it.
 

 
Do you remember those Swizzles lollipops you’d get at parties as a kid?? They came in strawberry, orange, blackcurrant, and lemon flavours and were all bizarrely packaged in the same strawberry patterned wrapper. Well, whilst the other kids all migrated to the strawberry and blackcurrant, I’d be first in line for the lemon.
 
Lemon meringue pie came next. Out it came at special family dinners, my mind racing with excitement as it was set down on the table. Then lemon curd. Memories of my dad slathering big gloops of its sweet, tart deliciousness over his morning stack of toast. Next, lemon drizzle cake. Oh, the list goes on, but most recently was my discovery of the lemon polenta cake. Polenta, as in, GLUTEN FREE. And lemon polenta cake as in, DELICIOUS GLUTEN FREE CAKE FLAVOURED WITH LEMONS.
 

 
The thing is, once I realised I was super into baking, I sort of decided to bypass all the beginner stuff and go straight into experimenting with healthy ingredient substitutes and unusual flavour combinations. So of course the lemon polenta cake became the lemon, coconut and olive oil (polenta) cake with lemon rose water syrup, desiccated coconut and freeze dried raspberry sprinkles.
 
IT TASTES ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL. And it looks so pretty I wanna cry. If this cake was on tinder, I would totally swipe right.
 

 
The flavours go together like a dream and the olive oil used in place of the traditionally used butter lends the most amazing moistness to the cake. Basically: YOU’VE GOT TO TRY THIS. My first major baking milestone denotes that EVERYONE MUST EAT CAKE. It’s the rule!

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