Gato Carre Rouge (Gato Francis)

This is seen across pastry vendors across the country - a bring red cube covered in coconut and topped with a dollop of whipped cream. It must be seen as the Mauritian Lamington as it is so similar to the Australian version which is usually coated in chocolate. It has a distinct texture which is created once the cake has been soaked and covered in coconut. Mauritians love their afternoon tea and I’ve made this recipe as simple as possible to achieve.

Ingredients

1 packet of vegetarian jelly strawberry flavoured

4 eggs (weigh your eggs and depending on the weight of your eggs in their shell this will determine the weight of all the other ingredients for the cake here we are saying the eggs in total weighed 225g in their shell, obviously remove from their shell for baking!

225g self raising flour

225g unrefined golden caster sugar

225g room temperature butter

3tbsp whole milk

Desiccated coconut enough for coating the gato

Some strawberries and some buttercream icing (i used a vanilla buttercream)

Method

Pre heat oven to 180 and line a roasting tray with baking parchment (i use a flat roasting dish not a cake tray as it allows me to make smaller squares)

Mix together sugar, butter and flour until you get a crumbly breadcrumb mixture

Slowly mix in the eggs one by one until you get a cake batter

Loosen the mixture with the milk

Place into a pre lined roasting tray

Bake for 20 minutes until the cake is cooked

Whilst the cake is cooling prepare the jelly according to packet instructions and leave to one side

Once the cake is cooled, chop the cake into 5cm cubes

Dip each sponge square into the liquid jelly and then straight after coat in the desiccated coconut

Allow the individual cakes to cool completely

Before serving top with a swirl of buttercream icing and half a strawberry

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The Sunshine Diet is packed full of exotic recipes that are simple to create and are packed full of flavour and fragrance.

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Shelina Permalloo