Strawberry and Coconut dairy-free cake

This cake is a lovely girly summery birthday cake. The pink hue of the frosting is achieved solely by the use of liquidised strawberries in the mixture - no food colouring whatsoever.

Ingredients

Sponge

8 oz 'Pure' dairy free spread

8 oz caster sugar

4 eggs, beaten

6 oz self raising flour

2 oz dessicated coconut

Frosting/sandwiching

The remainder of one tub of 'Pure'

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 tblsp strawberry jam

5tblsp icing sugar, sieved

a generous handful of strawberries, liquidised (about 4tblsp of juice)

To decorate

1 tblsp dessicated coconut

1 tblsp pink sugar crystals

approx. 4-5 strawberries, halved

1. Cream together the 'Pure' and the caster sugar for the cake.

2. Gradually add the eggs, stirring constantly.

3. Mix in the flour and the coconut and split the finished mixture between two 6 inch round sandwich tins, making a divet in the centre of each so that they rise evenly on top.

4. Bake at 180 degrees celsius for about 25-30 minutes.

5. Whilst the cake is baking, make the frosting. Cream together the icing sugar and the remainder of the 'Pure', and add the vanilla.

6. Whisk with an electric whisk, to make the mixture light and fluffy. Set aside about a third of the frosting (for the middle of the cake). Then gradually whisk in the liquidised strawberries to frosting that will cover the top of the cake.

7. When the cake is completely cool, spread a layer of strawberry jam over the top of the base layer.

8. Then top this with the vanilla frosting that was set aside earlier, and sit the top layer of sponge on top.

9. Cover the top layer with the strawberry frosting, and decorate with dessicated coconut and pink sugar crystals.

10. Decorate the edge of the cake with the half strawberries.

Note: This dairy-free frosting will melt a lot easier than frosting made with standard butter frosting, so it is best to keep the cake in the fridge. However, the decoration on the top of the frosting will mean that even if it is left out of the fridge for a while, it will still look good. Due to the use of fresh fruit in the frosting and as decoration, it is probably best to eat this cake within a couple of days (if it even lasts that long!)