Cake #12 - Fresh Coconut Layer Cake

I had such high hopes for this cake. I really love coconut. The recipe as written was quite easy and did not require a half pound of butter and twenty-two steps and multiple cooling times. So, where, oh where, and how oh how, did my cake go horribly (I thought) wrong?

The answer: basic chemistry and the surprising floral notes of fresh coconut.

It all started great and very promising. How fun is it to lay out your tools for a cake and include a hammer, two screwdrivers and real coconuts?

And, while I thought dealing with the coconuts would be difficult, it was surprisingly easy and a lot of fun. This is what a coconut looks like after it's been baked in the oven, shell cracked off and peeled. You can see an unpeeled coconut right above the white one.

One tip - the recipe recommends that you shred the coconut on the large holes of your box grater. Maybe my grater is dull, but it was extremely tedious work. Halfway through one coconut, I switched to the shred function on my food processor, and the work was done in seconds rather than tens of minutes.

The cake portion of the recipe was simple and produced delicious and light batter and gorgeous light cakes. Although, I did use three 8" pans because I don't have three 9" pans, and I absolutely refuse to buy any more bake ware! I didn't take any pictures, but believe me, they were fantastic, and my mouth was watering waiting for them.

So far, so good, right? This is when CHEMISTRY reared it's ugly head. First problem, maybe. I ran out of white sugar and had to substitute raw cane sugar.

Oh neighbor, I should have asked to borrow a cup of sugar!

I don't think it was the sugar substitute that made a huge difference - maybe a little flavor difference, but overall seemed okay. The real chemistry problem came with the fact that I do not own a hand-held mixer. We have a standing mixer. We have a stick blender. Usually, I am able to get by with one of the two, but in this frosting recipe, you are supposed to:

"Beat together egg whites, sugar, water, corn syrup, cream of tartar, and salt in a large deep bowl with a handheld mixer (clean beaters if necessary) until combined. Set bowl over a pot of simmering water and beat mixture at high speed until it holds stiff, glossy peaks, 5 to 7 minutes."

I attempted to use my hand mixer in this step, and even after 10 minutes of mixing, I never saw stiff, glossy peaks. I abandoned the step and moved onto beating with my standing mixer for the second part of the recipe, and things looked pretty good as evidenced by the picture below.

The frosting tasted great (very meringue) and had great consistency. Quickly, however, I learned that all was not right with the frosting. As soon as I mixed in the shredded coconut into a portion, it began to sink and weep.

The frosting is already starting to ooze out due to the weight of the second cake layer.

After I frosted the entire cake, I could tell I was in trouble. Sliding, oozing, not the elegant cake I had been going for.

By the time we ate the cake a few hours later? Full on ooze.

It's hard to see, but there is NO frosting left between the layers, it has all oozed out and is sliding around on the cake plate. Boo hoo.

And, how did it taste? The cake part tasted great, I thought, but I hated the coconut. So very floral. Like eating a bottle of sun tan lotion. Uck. The general consensus was the same, although Sam really liked it - he even came back later in the night for a second piece!

We ended up dropping 3/4 of a cake into the trash before the night was over. *Sigh* It's times like these that this cake project gets really frustrating.