Crazy for Coconut

Coconut is my hands down favorite flavor of all time. I don't like ice cream, for example: except for coconut. If you present me a dish of ingredients I'd normally shun, and tell me it also has coconut,  I'll give it a second look.  That's the great thing about being Caribbean: coconut is, to us, what vanilla is to the rest of the world. So, a trip "home" to Trinidad means that I can eat all the coconut bread, ice cream, cookies, candies, shakes and otherwise you-name-its that I want.

The one thing I really love about Easter here at my real home in the US,  is the seasonal appreciation for a good coconut cake, particularly among my Southern friends.  I'm not quite sure why coconut cake is an Easter fave--except perhaps that its complexity and use of the once-rare ingredient of coconut would have made for a special holiday confection. Or maybe the fluffy white frosting with coconut flakes called to mind a fluffy white lamb.

I can't really answer the question, but maybe my friend Nancie McDermott, cookbook author extraordinaire can. Her book Southern Cakes: Sweet and Irresistible recipes for Every Day Occasions should not be missed. Like all of her books (and there are many) every recipe is perfect and perfectly delectable--plus she's an all around great gal.

You can try her recipe for Classic Coconut Cake below, it's a staple at our house. And you can learn more about Nancie, including her library of stupendous books here.


Classic Coconut Cake

from Southern Cakes by Nancie McDermott

3	cups all-purpose flour
2	teaspoons baking powder
½	teaspoon salt
1	teaspoon vanilla extract
1	cup milk, or juice from a fresh coconut plus enough milk added to make 1 cup
1	cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
2	cups sugar
4	eggs
	White Mountain coconut icing (recipe follows)
3	cups freshly grated coconut or sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans and set aside. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt and use a fork to mix them together. Stir the vanilla into the milk.
In a large bowl, beat the softened butter with a mixer at medium speed until creamy. Add the sugar and continue beating, stopping to scrape down the sides, until the mixture is light and evenly combined. Add the eggs, one by one, beating well each time, until the mixture is thick and smooth.

Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture to the batter and beat well at low speed. Then add about half the milk to the batter, beating well. Continue beating as you add another third of the flour mixture, followed by the rest of the milk, and then the remaining flour mixture, beating well each time until the batter is very thick and smooth. Quickly scrape the batter into the prepared cake pans, dividing it evenly, and place them in the oven.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the cakes are golden-brown, spring back when touched lightly in the center, and begin to pull away from the sides of the pans.
Remove from the oven and cool in the pans on wire racks or folded kitchen towels for 10 minutes. Then turn out the cakes onto wire racks or plates, turn the layers top side up and cool completely. You could also split the layers horizontally to make 4 thin layers of cake.

Make White Mountain coconut icing; set aside.

To ice the cake, place one cake layer, top side down, on a cake stand or serving plate. Cover it generously with icing and sprinkle with some of the coconut. Place the second layer on top of the iced layer, top side up. First, ice the sides to help keep the cake steady, and then spread icing generously over the top, completely covering the cake.

Place the cake stand or serving plate on a cookie sheet to catch loose coconut as you shower the cake. Sprinkle coconut all over the cake, and then gently pat handfuls of coconut onto the sides and top to cover bare spots. Transfer leftover coconut to a jar or resealable plastic bag and store it in the freezer. Makes 8 to 10 servings.



White Mountain coconut icing: Stir 1 cup sugar into 1/2 cup water to dissolve it. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and cook without stirring for 3 minutes. Then boil for 5 to 10 minutes more, stirring often, until the syrup has thickened and will form itself into a thread about 2 inches long when poured from a spoon back into the pot. Set the syrup aside.
Beat 2 egg whites in a large bowl with a mixer at high speed until they are bright white, shiny and pillow into voluminous clouds. While beating at high speed, slowly pour the cooked syrup into the egg whites to blend them into a fluffy white icing, 4 to 5 minutes.