Sepia Saturday with Be-Ro, Tea Time Treats and Rich Jam and Coconut Cake Recipe (2024)

Sepia Saturday with Be-Ro, Tea Time Treats and

Rich Jam and Coconut Cake Recipe

It’sSaturdayand it’s Sepia, as in Sepia Saturday, the weekly baking challenge where I attempt to bake my way through eighty years of Be-Ro cookbooks……although, I have not posted a Be-Ro bake for the last three weeks due to travelling and other events! My last Sepia Saturday post wasSepia Saturday, Happy Baking Days with TalaandBe-Ro: Strawberry Iced Butterfly Fairy Cakes, those little cakes are just a distant memory now, but, they were delicious…..take my word for it! But not only is my post today all about Be-Ro, but it’s also my first entry into October’s Tea Time Treats, the theme being preserves…….and as myRich Jam and Coconut Cake recipe has some home-made raspberry jam in it, it’s the perfect entry I think. I have also been VERY sneaky and have managed to enter this old-fashioned recipe into Dom’s Random Recipes too…..where the task is to make or bake a recipe with a “random” store cupboard find…….and after delving my hand into mystore-cupboard, I pulled out a jar of dessicated coconut,luckily, as I needed to use it up – it’s beensittingthere for ages! I just love it when a plan comes together!

My recipe for Rich Jam and Coconut Cake, comes from the 24th million edition of the Be-Ro book of Home Recipes;I guesstimate that it was published on the 1940’s…..the original recipe only uses jam in it, and it called a Rich Jam Cake(rich as in a rubbed in method of cake) but, we have always spread more jam onto these little cakes and sprinkled coconut over them, so I am using my families adaptedversiontoday. My mum also used to make these little jam and coconut cake sandwiches with stale left over cake (and yes, there was some sometimes!) and I remember havingthemfor Sunday tea. They are easy to make and any jam can be uses, although I used some home-made raspberry jam when I made these today. If you are not a lover of coconut, then the added jam and coconutfinishis not necessary……

What I love about this recipe is its simplicity – we are surrounded by over laden iced “cupcakes” and multi-layered cakes nowadays, as well as “cake pops”, “giant American muffins” and other gargantuan bakes and cakes; but these cake sandwiches are simple and constrained, whilsttheyshowcase all that is good about family baking – using good ingredients with great home-made produce, such as my jam! These cakes aren’t showy or blousy, they arecomfortingand wholesome in a way that a generously butter-creamiced cake is not…..plus,the combination ofhome-made raspberry jam and coconut is, frankly sublime! Simple they may be, but I bet they have put asmileon many a face at the tea time table over the years, and I love them…..they are a taste of my childhood; they are an “heirloom bake” with a long tradition of happiness at the family table.

So, the next time you fancy making a simple cake for the tea time table, or for a picnic or the school lunch box, I can recommend this recipe. I must also share another little family secret – these are alsotrèslush when made with lemon curd! I hope you have enjoyed my Sepia Saturday Random Tea Time Treat Recipe today, the recipe is below, and dont foreget you can print my recipes with ot without a photo………we have two slices of thisleft, and I am away to pop the kettle on now, and enjoy one more of these jammy coconut treats…….see you later, and have a wonderful weekend. Karen

Rich Jam and Coconut Cake Recipe has been entered into:

If you fancy joining in, just add your recipe/post link to the Linky below, or if you don’t have a blog, please just leave a comment and let me know that you baked along with Be-Ro!

Happy baking, Karen