Helen Goh’s springtime spinach sponge cake with cream cheese icing – recipe | The sweet spot

Bright green, tangy and tender, this cake is a delicious way to sing in the spring There is a particular green that belongs to spring: pale and luminous, it’s softer than the dark foliage of winter, and quieter than the glossy abundance of summer herbs. Spinach, the colour of new growth, captures this moment perfectly. Tender and almost impossibly vivid, this cake loses its metallic edge in the heat of the oven, leaving a gentle, vegetal brightness. Baked in a shallow tin and spread with cream cheese icing, when sliced into squares, it produces the perfect ratio of cake to icing and tastes uncommonly good. For the cake120g baby leaf spinach, stems removed 120ml milk 200g plain flour 1½ tsp baking powder ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) ¼ tsp fine sea salt 3 large eggs, at room temperature180g caster sugar Finely grated zest of 1 lime 120ml solid coconut oil, melted and cooled to tepid1 tsp vanilla extract For the icing200g cream cheese 100g icing sugar, sifted Finely grated zest of 1 lime, plus 1 tsp juice80ml double cream Line the base and sides of a standard 23cm x 33cm x 5cm baking tin and heat the oven to 185C (165C fan)/360F/gas 4½. Put the spinach and milk in a h