Vegan lime drizzle sheet cake

Step 1

Measure out the plant milk and bring it to room temperature ahead of baking or warm it up to room temperature (do not allow it to get warm as it will melt the sugar in the batter) if you are in a rush.

Step 2

Heat up the oven to 180° C (or 160° C fan forced) / 355° F (320° F fan forced). Grease a baking pan.

Step 3

Zest all 8 limes and squeeze out the juice. You'll need 170 ml (under ¾ cup) in total: 60 ml (4 tbsp) for the cake, 80 ml (1/3 cup) for the drizzle and another 30 ml (2 tbsp) for the icing. Before you carry on with the cake batter, make the syrup (below) so that it has a chance to cool down.

Step 4

Whisk the softened vegan butter and sugar together with an electric whisk.

Step 5

Add in the lime zest, lime juice and room temperature plant milk and mix well with a spatula. Once you add the plant milk, vegan butter might look curdled, don't worry, that's normal.

Step 6

Next, add in the desiccated coconut.

Step 7

Finally, place a sieve over the bowl with the wet ingredients and sift through half of the flour, cornstarch and both raising agents. Incorporate them into the wet ingredients then sift in the 2nd batch of dry infredients. Mix gently just until there is no dry pockets left.

Step 8

Transfer the batter to the prepared baking tin.

Step 9

Bake for about 35 minutes, until the edges pull away from the side of the tin, a toothpick comes out clean and the top is golden brown - cover with the top with a piece of foil if it is getting too dark.

Step 10

Allow the cake to rest for 5 minutes, then pierce it with a toothpick in several places. Brush the surface of the hot cake (that's important as otherwise the syrup will stay on the surface) with cold (fridge cold preferably) syrup several times allowing the syrup to soak into the cake between each go.

Step 11

Once cool, drizzle with icing starting from the middle so that it drips down to the sides creating pretty drizzle marks. Finally, sprinkle with chopped pistachios and lime zest.

Step 12

Place the sugar and lime juice in a small pot over a low heat.

Step 13

Bring the contents of the pot to a gentle simmer and cook until the sugar dissolves completely and the syrup thickens a touch. Set aside to cool down completely, plunge then pot with the syrup in a bowl of iced water to speed things up.

Step 14

Whisk the icing sugar and lime juice in a medium size bowl until fully combined. Add the lime juice gradually to avoid lumps in your icing and to be able to control the consistency of the icing better.