These delicious cake bars are perfect for packed lunches, school break snacks, take to work snacks and afternoon pick me ups for those busy work at home mums! These fluffy cake bars are delicious with a thin coating of orange icing on top. You could also skip the icing and just eat the cake bars on their own too.

You could also add a delicate sprinkle of desiccated coconut on the top also but I enjoy these with a light sprinkling of grated orange zest. It adds a bit of colour.

You could also use coconut sugar if you want to lighten the sugary load or perhaps maple syrup but bearing in mind you would need more flour to compensate any additional liquids. Here’s my recipe below which makes one huge lasagna style trays worth. You can also split the recipe and make a smaller 20x20cm tins worth too.

Freezer Tip! – When I made these I doubled this recipe below and cut the cakes down the middle making four large squares of cake. I iced one to enjoy and froze the other three (before icing) which I can then defrost and quickly ice up during the month ahead. Just a quick tip to make things easier in those busy family kitchens! 🙂

Coconut and Orange Cake Bars

400g of Self Raising Flour

1/2tsp of salt

200g of butter

200g of golden caster sugar

100g desiccated coconut

2 medium eggs beaten

Juice of 2 oranges

Decoration

Grated zest of 2 oranges

2tbps of orange juice

200g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 160oc and grease a large lasagna style dish or baking tray. If your halving the recipe then you can use a smaller tray, like a 20x20cm.

Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl. Add the butter in small pieces and rub or mix in until it resembles crumbs.

Stir in the coconut and sugar.

Add the eggs and orange juice to the center of the bowl. Mix well and pour into your greased dish.

Bake for 35minutes or until golden brown on the top and a butter knife comes out clean from the center.

Leave to cool completely before icing the cakes.

Add the icing and the orange juice together. Due to the varying size of oranges adjust the icing flour and juice ratio until you get a thick icing. You don’t want anything too runny.

Spread over the top of the sponge, sprinkle the zest on. (you can also add to the icing before if you prefer to do it this way, I like the extra colour from being added on the top).

Slice into fingers of your choice size. You can also slice further into cubes for smaller children.

Enjoy!

Love