My family just adores this fresh West African Lime Cake. I don’t know about you, but once the summer hits, I start thinking about light and fruity cakes and treats.
And what could be better in summer than a zesty African lime cake? This West African Lime cake called Keke is a wonderful dessert that is not too sweet and is super easy to make. It was the perfect ending to our Togolese meal.
I brought this cake to a friend’s barbecue last summer and I didn’t even get the chance to taste it - it was devoured before I could get a slice! The next time you’re baking for a summer barbecue, this is the recipe to try. This West African Lime Cake is simple, quick and tasty. It always goes down a treat when I make it for a crowd.
This dish is easy to make and is very versatile. Try it for breakfast, a snack, or desert, to get a taste of the interesting country of Togo.
Did you know that Togo's capital city, Lome' is considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in all of West Africa? It has broad boulevards and a cosmopolitan atmosphere. The capital city Lome' got its name from the alo trees that used to grow around the city.
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The West African state of Togo is 70 miles wide and sits on the Atlantic Ocean between Ghana to the west and Benin to the east. Togo’s population of around eight million people is made up of a collective of tribes that straddle either side of its modern-day borders.
Due to its narrowness and the fact Togo is home to more than 30 different tribal groupings, culinary influences have crossed its borders for centuries, with France and Ghana having the largest influence. The Togolese have perfected the skill of carrying anything on their heads - be it bananas, a ceiling fan, a basket of 300 eggs, or five gallons of water.
So cool!
It’s is a very easy recipe to follow - you just have to combine sugar, butter, eggs, lime and flour to make a light and tasty cake that everyone will love. This is such an easy recipe it only has 6 ingredients just sugar, butter, eggs, lime, flour and baking powder. Easy peasy to throw together. The peanut topping is optional.
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Ingredients:
- 2 ½ dl sugar
- 2 ½ tbs butter/margarine
- 2 eggs
- juice of 1 lime
- 3 ½ dl flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- chopped peanuts (optional)
For the Icing:
- icing sugar
- lime juice
- a drop of green food coloring
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 300 °F (150°C). Grease and flour a 8x8 square pan or 8"round cake tin.
- Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy with a hand mixer. This step is the ‘mechanical leavening’ which will help the cake rise and give it great texture. It should be light and fluffy.
- Add eggs in one at a time until incorporated and then add in the lime juice mix together.
- Stir in the flour and baking powder until all is well combined.
- Pour batter into the baking pan. This recipe makes an 8x8 square pan or an eight inch cake pan would work too.
- Bake for about 25 minutes until top is lightly browned and a toothpick comes out clean. Bake until just done: Pound cakes are dense and take their time baking, sometimes up to an hour. They’ll brown quite a bit on top before they are done.
- Let cool. Remove from the oven when the cake is a light brown color on top and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
- Garnish with crushed peanuts if using and serve.
Step-by-step icing instructions:
- Mix the icing sugar and lime juice together, measure after how thick layer of icing you want on the cake. Then add a drop or two of green food coloring.
- Spread the icing over the top of the cake, then let it stand in the refrigerator to cool.
- Cut the cake into square pieces.
Serve the cake with a peanut garnish on top.
Prep - Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C). Grease and flour pan.
Make - In the mixer bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 8 to 10 minutes. Add eggs in until incorporated then mix in the lime juice. Add in flour and baking soda a mix until everything is combined.
Bake - Pour batter into greased baking pan. Bake until top is lightly browned, about 25 minutes. Let cool.
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Quick to prepare: this takes approximately 1 h to make overall. The baking time in the oven is 25 min, and preparations and decorations takes approximately 30 min.
Ease of preparation: This recipe is easy to make, the steps are simple and easy to follow.
Everyday vs. Gourmet: This cake has a very fresh and nice taste because of the lime.
Fresh Limes: Bright and fresh zest from the skin of the limes and pure lime juice go into the cake. Absolutely avoid using bottled lime juice to make this.
Pound cake structure: This cake is not an airy or fluffy cake, much like traditional pound cake it has a tight, dense crumb. This is achieved by carefully incorporating room temperature ingredients together, adding them as we cream the batter. While a traditional pound cake has no chemical leavening, I’ve given this one just a bit to give it a boost to rise.
Lime drizzle: Zest can really take a cake only so far, no matter how much we use so to really zone in on that lime flavor we’re going to make a lime syrup with fresh juice and sugar. Personally my favorite part of this cake with the crust; dark and deeply caramelized but soaked in tart lime made it very addictive.
Fresh! When I’m using the zest of a fruit I like to buy organic as I’ll be eating that skin. Also - please use a microplane zester!
If you like using European butter, you’ll find it does well in a recipe like this with its higher butterfat percentage but I use American style (it’s cheaper!) and it is still perfect.
Eggs contribute to the cake’s structure, their swelling as they bake helps the cake rise, and texture, as they add moisture and fat to the cake. This adds more fat to the cake without adding that eggy taste we’d get if we were simply adding more yolks.
Often in pound cakes I like to use cake flour for its finer mill, as it will lead to great texture. However for the one pictured I used all purpose and it worked just fine.
Room temperature ingredients: Butter, eggs and the sour cream should be at room temperature before starting. The butter needs to be soft so you can cream it with the sugar. You can place the eggs in warm water to quickly warm them up. If the eggs are very cold they can shock some of the bits of butter into solidifying again (even after creaming) and it can separate the batter.
Cream well: You want to give the sugar and butter a really good beating to aerate the batter.
Bake until just done: Pound cakes are dense and take their time baking, sometimes up to an hour. They’ll brown quite a bit on top before they are done. A light colored, metal tin that’s a standard size loaf pan (light colored so it doesn’t darken the cake too much), size should be about 8.5-9 inches long and 4-5” inches wide.
You’ll combine freshly squeezed lime juice and fine granulated sugar and then cook them until the sugar dissolves. To get it into the cake I use a needle-thin cake tester and poke holes all over the cake. Then you’ll pour the syrup over the cake, most of it will go to the sides and edges so try to get quite a bit into the center. The cake will look like it’s drowning in water but don’t worry.
This cake will keep well for a few days. Store in an airtight container. A dense fluffy pound cake flecked with lots of fresh lime zest is doused in a lime and sugar syrup.
Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a standard size loaf pan (9x4”).
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the butter, sugar, vanilla salt and the zest. Beat for about 5 minutes, until the mix is very light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl when needed.
With the beater on, add the eggs one at a time, then turn the mixer to medium and beat the batter for a few minutes. It might look bitty or separated, that’s ok.
Sift in the flour and baking powder then add the sour cream. Turn the mixer back on and beat until it’s a silky, creamy batter (scrape down the bowl to make sure you get the bits at the bottom well mixed).
Pour batter into loaf pan, smooth the batter into an even line at the top.
Bake the cake for about 50-55 minutes (check it at 45), it’s done when a cake tester comes out clean.
When it’s almost done baking, make the syrup: In a small pot, add the sugar and lime juice and cook until the sugar dissolves.
When the cake comes out of the oven, use a long thin cake tester to poke some holes all over. Pour the syrup all over the cake - trying to get as much as you can into the center (it will naturally go toward the edges). Let the cake sit in the syrup for about 10 minutes, until it has absorbed it all.
Turn the cake onto a cooling rack to completely cool.
Store in an airtight container so it doesn’t dry out.
