Strawberry and coconut crumble cake with lemon cream

Cooking with Paula McIntyre

Elderflower cordial 15 elderflower heads, washed 1 litre boiling water 450g castor sugar 1 lemon finely sliced 2 teaspoons citric acid

Place the sugar in a bowl and pour over the boiling water. Add the lemon and elderflower heads and stir well. Add the citric acid and cover for 24 hours. Strain through muslin and store in sterilized bottles.

Strawberry and coconut crumble cake with lemon cream

325g strawberries, hulled and roughly chopped 50g sugar 25g cornflour

Place the chopped strawberries and sugar in a pan with 25ml of water. Simmer for 4 minutes. Mix about 2 tablespoons of cold water into the cornflour to make a paste. Mix into the strawberries and mix well. Set aside to cool.

Line a cake tin with parchment paper and set oven to 180oc. Crumble topping 100g plain flour 60g butter at room temperature 30g castor sugar

Rub the butter into the flour to coarse crumbs and mix in the sugar.

225g plain flour ¾ teaspoon baking powder 50g desiccated coconut 200g castor sugar 75g melted butter 2 eggs 100ml whole milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix the flour, baking powder, coconut and sugar in a bowl and make a well in the centre. In a separate bowl whisk the butter, eggs, milk and vanilla. Add to the dry ingredients and mix to a smooth batter. Spoon half into the bottom of the cake tin and spread well. Cover with the cooled strawberries. Top with the remaining cake mix – don’t worry too much about spreading it – dollop it over as much as you can. Sprinkle the crumble evenly over the top and place in oven. Bake for about 45 minutes or until golden on top and an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool for 15 minutes before cutting up.

Lemon cream

Zest and juice 1 lemon 50g castor sugar 250ml double cream

Boil the lemon zest and juice with the sugar to a thick syrup and cool. Whip the cream and fold in the lemon mixture.