Toasted Coconut Cake

I have never made a coconut cake before last week, and since then I have made three. I've never made one before this because, while I love the flavor and smell of coconut, the texture of shredded coconut makes my skin crawl and my teeth itch.

this cake was made with the Bon Appetit recipe x 1.5

My new friend Laura likes coconut cake, though, and it was her birthday so I gave it a shot. I used this recipe from Bon Appetit magazine, and it was very good. I loved using cream of coconut in the cake- it kept it very moist for days while the leftovers sat on the table slowly being nibbled away. It featured cream cheese frosting flavored with a bit of cream of coconut. (not to be confused with coconut milk).

I used farm fresh eggs from Eric's friend at work for Laura's cake.

But then, inspired by the whole coconut bit and an article in my new Food and Wine magazine, I tried out another coconut cake for the restaurant. This cake was more angelfood-like, but was brushed with rum syrup (slurp!), and had light and airy italian meringue buttercream frosting.

I'll leave to you coconut fanatics to decide which cake is better, because both got rave reviews. It probably depends if you go for light and airy or dense and moist.

Towering Coconut Layer Cake adapted from Tyler Florence for Food and Wine magazine

Layers:

10 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tbs vanilla extract

1/2 cup plus 1 T vegetable oil

1 1/2 cup AP flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 t kosher salt or 1/2 t regular salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter or spray 4 9-in cake pans and line with parchment rounds.

Using an electric mixer, mix the butter, sugar and eggs on high until the mixture is fluffy and tripled in volume. Gradually beat in the oil until fully incorporated.

In another bowl, sift the flour, salt and cornstarch. Fold these dry ingredients into the egg mixture until smooth.

Spread the batter evenly between the 4 cake pans, smoothing the top, and bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Let cool on racks.

Make the Rum Syrup:

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup water

2 tbs spiced rum (i used white rum, it still tasted good)

Stir the sugar and water together in a small saucepan over high heat until the sugar is fully dissolved. Let cool then stir in the rum.

Make the Coconut frosting:

1 1/2 sugar

1/2 cup water

6 large egg whites

4 sticks (1 pound) butter, room temperature

1 1/2 tbs coconut extract

2 cups coconut flakes (I used sweetened), toasted.

In a saucepan, stir the water and sugar together over high heat until the sugar is dissolved. Then stop stirring and let boil until the syrup reaches 228 degrees on a candy thermometer. If you don't have such a thermometer, just boil until you can see the faintest tinges of gold starting in the syrup. This as always worked for me.

A few minutes into the boiling, start whipping the egg whites in a perfectly clean stand mixer bowl with the whisk attachment. Beat until stiff peaks form. When the syrup is ready, while running the mixer on medium high, gradually beat in the hot syrup. When it's all in, reduce the speed of the mixer to medium and beat until the egg whites have cooled to room temperature.

At this point, beat in the butter, a couple tablespoons at a time until it's all encorporated. If the mixture looks like its curdling, power through, it should come together in the end with enough beating. Mix in the coconut extract.

To assemble to cake:

Brush each layer with the Rum Syrup, spread each with about 1 1/4 cup frosting and stack. Frost the outside of the cake and then press the toasted coconut to the sides of the cake. If desired, you can also sprinkle toasted coconut between the layers, too. If you like coconut, that is.

If you don't like coconut flakes, you can just eat the interior like I did.

Easy Chocolate Icecream

Here I am, talking about David Lebovitz again. Get used to it- I'm on an ice cream kick.

This is not ice cream as we know it- it is incredibly easy to make, requires no ice cream maker, and I am going to claim that it's healthy. It has very little dairy and a lot of banana. And chocolate. And a wee bit o alcohol.

The alcohol keeps the ice cream from freezing solid and the banana (which as we discussed in the last post, is an emulsifier) keeps everything suspended and homogenous. And the chocolate makes it delicious.

I made this ice cream a lot while we were going through the moving process. It was just too easy to whirl the ingredients around in the blender, pop it in the freezer and come home later to something refreshing after a long day of painting and packing.

This ice cream does not have the creamy ice cream texture we expect from ice cream, but offers mucho refreshment for very little effort.

Ingredients:

1 banana, peeled and chunked

2 oz semi-sweet chocolate

6 T milk

7 T liquor (you can use pretty much any type- though some will taste better than others. I've found combinations of rum, baileys and kahlua to work well. Also, I've used a bit less liquor before and it turned out fine- but the less you use the more icy the ice cream will be.)

That's it! Now put the milk in a cup and put the chocolate in the milk. Microwave for 30 seconds and stir to melt the chocolate. Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend til smooth. Pour the chocolate mixture into a bowl or tupperware, cover and freeze for about 4 hours.

Be sure to let me know how many times you make it this week!

Mojito Cake by Cakelove

As we know, Mojitos are one of the best uses for rum. And there are a lot of fantastic uses for rum, as my roommates and I explored our senior year of college.

Examples:

Hot Rum Spiced Cider

Rum-nana Pancakes

Rice Pudding flavoring

Actually, flavoring just about any dessert. Also any drink or icecream.

We thought that buying the massive jug of rum would be more cost effective and last us a long time. It did not, because it's very presence inspired us to add it to almost everything we ate or drank.

Anyway...why not a mojito cake? Thanks, Cakelove!

Preheat to 350. Prepare two 9 in cake pans.

Ingredients:

12 oz AP flour (or 2 cups plus 2 T)

1/4 cup potato starch

1 t salt

1/4 vanilla powder (I omitted this.)

1/4 t baking soda

3 whole cloves, ground (I used pre-ground)

1/3 cup oven dried mint (place mint leaves in an aluminum foil pouch. poke holes with a fork. bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes. Crush with fingers and remove stems. )

Whisk together and set aside

2/3 cup sour cream

1/4 cup half and half

3 T dark rum

2 t vanilla extract

1 t molasses

1 t lemoncello (I was unable to find this at our liquor store, so I used

1 lime, zested (to add to the butter and sugar) and segmented (meaning cutting the juice pods away from the white segments holding them to the middle. So you have just juice pods and no strings or tough parts) (add the juice pods to the rest of these ingredients)

Whisk together and set aside

8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

18 oz (2 1/4 cups) extra fine sugar

2 t minced lime zest

4 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

Cream the butter, sugar and lime zest in a mixer at low speed until light and fluffy, about 5 min.

Add the eggs and yolks one at a time, fully blending each.

Add the dry and wet ingredients, alternating in 3 to 5 additions, in about a minute (don't linger over this step.) Scrape the mixer, and then beat on medium for 15-20 sec.

Pour into cake pans and bake about 30 min, until a knife or skewer stuck in the middle comes out clean.

I saved some batter and made myself a couple cupcakes:

While your cakes are cooling (don't remove from the pans until they are cool, then wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate), make your Rum Italian Meringue Buttercream (recipe in previous post).

Doctor up your layers, pile them on, do the crumb coat, chill, and then glop on the frosting. You may want to garnish with mint leaves and Raw Sugar.

Be sure to serve at Room temp. This cake is a little denser, and is in fact called a pound cake in the book. So for the cake an icing to be soft, pull out of the fridge about an hour before serving.

"Mr. Banana Legs" by Cakelove

Here is the second attempt at the Banana Cake from Cakelove; this time i followed the recipe to the letter AND used my NEW KITCHEN SCALE!!! And really, why would you dirty all those cup measures when you could just pour everything into a bowl on a scale?

This cake lived up to the hype- it was lighter and more cake-like than any banana baked good I've ever had. Also, I discovered Rum Flavored Italian Meringue Buttercream, which may be the best thing I've ever had in my mouth. True story.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 min

Ingredients:

AP flour: 10 oz (or 2 cups)

potato starch: 1 T (I found this in this "healthy" section of Kroger, near the bulk grains.)

turbinado sugar: 1 T (I used Sugar in the Raw)

salt: 1/2 t

baking soda: 1/4 t

nutmeg: 1 whole (I used ground, not sure how much it is supposed to be)

* Mix these ingredients together and set aside

6 oz very ripe bananas (the book claims this is three, but according to my NEW KITCHEN SCALE, it is not quite 2. I went with the weight rather than number of bananas.)

3/4 cup half and half

1 T dark rum

* Blend or food process these ingredients for 30 sec or until smooth and set aside

6 oz (1.5 sticks) unsalted butter, softened.

21 oz (or 2 3/4 cup) extra fine sugar

4 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

Directions:

Cream the butter and sugar together at low speed until pale and fluffy, 3-5 min. Add the eggs and yolks one by one, blending fully between each. Alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients, in three to five additions. Add them quickly, don't bother waiting until each is fully blended. Do it in about one minute. Then blend at medium speed for 15-20 sec to "develop the batter's structure."

Spray the bottom of two 9 in cake pans, and divide the batter between the two. Bake until a skewer comes out clean, and remove from oven. Let cool for 30 min before removing from pan. Let cool completely, and refridge until ready to use.

Meanwhile, prepare the ganache and frosting. For the Ganache, as always, heat one part heavy cream then pour in 1.5 parts chocolate, let melt, and stir til smooth.

Then move onto the FANTASTIC FROSTING. And if you have a mixer, so easy.

1-1/4 cup sugar, divided

1/4 cup water

5 large egg whites

1 pound (4 sticks) butter, softened

3 T rum, or whatever other flavor you want to use.

In a small saucepan with a lid, combine 1 cup sugar with 1/4 cup water. Stir thoroughly and put the lid on. Heat at medium-high heat while you put 5 large egg whites in your mixer. Whip these up into stiff peaks, which should on take a minute or two.

Keep an eye on your sugar. You don't want it to turn golden, but you do want it to reach the temperature of 245. I don't have a candy thermometer, so I wait til I think it's about to turn gold. Is it the best system? Probably not. Has it worked so far? Absolutely.

When stiff peaks form in the eggs, add 1/4 cup sugar, while the mixer is running. When the sugar in the pan is hot enough, slowly add the syrup to the egg whites, again, while the mixer is running.

Reduce the speed to medium and run for about 5 min, until the mixture has cooled.

Add the softened butter, one tablespoon at a time. When all is added, increase the mixer speed to high again for a couple minutes to make sure the frosting is smooth. Add your flavor, in this case, RUM:) Aaand you're done!

To assemble:

Remove the cake from the fridge, and doctor it up with a knife. You might want to rub off all the brown parts- the overdone crumbs. You might want to cut off the top of on of the cakes for an even layer.

Then brush the tops of each layer with Chocolate Ganache, and put sliced bananas on what will be the bottom layer. Put these in the freezer for a few minutes to harden the chocolate so it's easier to spread the frosting on it without making choco-streaking frosting.

When it's ready, spread a thick layer of meringue on the bottom layer, and then place the top layer. Spread a thin "crumb coat" of frosting over the entire cake, to seal in any troublesome crumbs. Refrigerate or freeze for 5 or so more minutes to harden the coat.

Finally, spread the meringue all over the cake, making interesting textures or keeping it smooth. And you're done!

Final Thoughts:

1. DEFINITELY serve this cake at room temp. The frosting becomes harder and somehow brittle when cold. It is a constant conundrum that the cakes at the restaurant have to be stored in the cold case, and so are not served at the optimal taste temperature.

2. The cake, the ganache and the frosting are all amazing, phenomenal, even when they exist by themselves. When combined, there is somewhat of a disconnect. To me (and Eric, who usually declines to comment on such things), they don't exactly complement each other- the frosting is very light, but does fight for attention with the denser cake. So maybe you and I can find different uses for these delicious elements. That said, it's still a great cake and worth the time and the calories.