Coconut Deliciousness

Yummy!! Cupcake Break.

There have been a lot of cakes recently. Of course it is Birthday Season here. Still it is nice to take a break and try something different.

Since Chocolate, Yellow, White and Banana are consistently baked in our house I thought we should try a new flavor. Coconut. Someone that is considering asking me to make them a cake has requested a Coconut cake. I can honestly say that I have never made one. So I began the search for a cake that I could be willing to happily hand over to them.

The recipe that I settled on was one I found on the Food Network presented by The Barefoot Contessa -

Coconut Cake
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for greasing the pans
2 cups sugar
5 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the pans
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup milk
4 ounces sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 (9-inch) round cake pans, then line them parchment paper. Grease them again and dust lightly with flour.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on medium-high speed for 3 to 5 minutes, until light yellow and fluffy. Crack the eggs into a small bowl. With the mixer on medium speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl once during mixing. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well. The mixture might look curdled; don't be concerned.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk to the batter in 3 parts, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Mix until just combined. Fold in the 4 ounces of coconut with a rubber spatula.

I baked these into cupcakes - they took 14 minutes each. However if you were baking into cakes the batter could be divided into 2 pans and then baked for 40-45 minutes. This recipe and directions came directly from the site - no tweaking involved.

The icing was not the one listed on the site. I used a simple Cream Cheese icing. After placing a bit of icing on the cupcakes I topped them with a tiny bit of shredded coconut.

The result was delicious!!