About four months ago, my mum and I attempted, and I mean “attempted,” to make a coconut cake. I don’t know what went wrong, but it turned into some kind of gooey coconut mush that fell apart when we tried to take it out of the pan. Bad experience. But ever since that fateful (for the cake) day, I have been trying to find that perfect coconut cake recipe. And I finally found it!!
The picture doesn’t do the cake justice. It really was delicious, and actually quite nice to look at…while I was eating it.
And a bonus was that it was quite easy to make, which always makes something taste better.
I found the original recipe through Pinterest, a wonderful wonderful site that sucks up hours of my day, and allows me to find amazing recipes that I will never have the time to make, and outfits that I will never have. *sigh*
Anyways, I thought the recipe was slightly hard to understand, so I decided to include it here. I have to say, the cake is perfect for the summer. The cake itself is extremely light, and the recipe calls for a frosting of whipped cream, which makes it that much lighter!
Ingredients for Cake:
- 1 cup butter
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3 eggs
- 3 egg yolks
- 1 Tbsp vanilla
- 3 1/4 cups cake flour
- 2 1/2 tsps baking powder
- 1/4 tsps salt
- 1 1/4 cups milk
- 1 1/2 cups dried sweetened coconut + additional for garnish
Ingredients for frosting:
- 3 cups whipping cream
- 2 Tbsps sugar
- 1 Tbsp rum (optional)
Prep: Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and butter and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Set aside. In a bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add eggs, then yolks, one at a time, and beat until completely mixed. Mix in vanilla. In another bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix in 1/3 of the flour mixture into the butter mixture, then mix in half of the milk. After mixed, beat in another 1/3 of the flour mixture, and then the rest of the milk. To end, mix in the rest of the flour mixture. Fold in the coconut. When finished, scoop equal amounts of the batter into the two cake pans, and spread evenly.
Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Once done, remove cakes from oven and place on a cooling rack. Allow the cakes to cool for 10 minutes before inverting onto the cooling rack. The let cool completely.
In the meantime, whip the heavy cream and the sugar in a bowl until soft peaks form. At this time you can fold in rum if you want. To frost the cake, split each cake so that you have four layers instead of two. Frost each layer, and then sprinkle coconut on the top as a garnish.
I love this cake, and I will definitely be making it again. As with every dessert I make, I like to enjoy it with a nice cuppa.
You can quite easily change the recipe as well. Even though it is essentially only two layers of cake, the product is quite big. If you want to split the recipe in half, you can just make one cake, split that in half, and end up with two layers. Or if you want something really different, instead of a whipped cream frosting, you could use a chocolate buttercream or chocolate glaze instead, but still use coconut as a garnish to tie it all in. The possibilities are endless. It’s up to you to explore them. Enjoy!
In a Different Direction 