Cake Slice: Southern Coconut Cake

This week, the Cake Slice Bakers tackled Southern Coconut Cake, from the cookbook Sky High, by Alisa Huntsman and Peter Wynne.

I told myself all month long that I was not making this cake. And I had a truck-load of excuses too... I'm not crazy about coconut, I don't have time, my waistline doesn't need it, I don't have my old neighbors to unload the extra on, etc., etc..

My husband really dislikes coconut. He'll make faces and tell me that shredded coconut reminds him of toenail clippings (ewwww!). (He can be so grown-up sometimes.)

But then, at the last minute, I got the excuse I needed to get me into the kitchen and channelling my inner coconut lover. You see, the last few nights, we've had two guys over doing some work in the house and they've run into every problem under the sun. What should have taken three or four hours has taken eight, and they're still not done. That's when I told myself, "cake will make it better!"


Turns out, I am SO glad I made this cake. The icing, a cream cheese Italian Meringue buttercream, is to DIE for!! I wish I could fill a swimming pool and swim in it. It's quite rich, though, so a small piece of cake was plenty.

I'm thinking the icing would also work as a "cream cheese mousse"... maybe as part of a fancy plated dessert. (You know, those fancy plated desserts that we all serve after a long day of work, homework checking, running kids, and cooking dinner?)

The cake is good too, moist and soft. I really couldn't detect the coconut milk in it, though.

If you're feeling a little coco-nutty, I highly recommend trying this cake. Coconut lovers might want to up the coconut factor by adding some coconut extract. (You can find the recipe ---> here.)

One last word on this cake. It's versatile... it goes with the tropical theme...


... and the winter wonderland theme.


Seriously, doesn't it just remind you of fluffy, white snow?

Baking Notes:
I halved the recipe and baked it in 6 inch pans. Also, and this is just me... whenever a cake recipe calls for egg whites only, I usually break the rules and use whole eggs, replacing two whites with one whole egg. I'm not all hung up on having pure white cake and having a bowl of egg yolks to find a home for is just one more task in my already busy day. So, that's why my cake is a nice creamy white instead of snow white.

OK, that's all for this month!