Here are a few tips that you may want to use if you are ever planning to bake a delectable coconut cake. First, always use fresh ingredients. If the ingredients call for butter, use real butter, not margarine. The best type to use in good coconut cakes is sweet cream salted butter. Your butter should be chilled, but soft, when mixing your ingredients. Also, your grated coconut should be fresh frozen and sweetened. Sweetened frozen coconut perfectly is fine to use when preparing coconut cakes. Who wants to chop and grate fresh coconut? For busy people, the frozen or bagged is the best. Sometimes, before sprinkling your cake with the coconut, it is best to let it marinate in a little milk or heavy cream in a bowl in the refrigerator. My grandmother on my mother’s side always did this, and believe me, the cake will be the best in the world. I would say about a half a cup of milk or heavy cream to a bag of sweetened frozen coconut. It will soak up all the goodness before sprinkling on to the cake. Lastly, always use fresh chilled and soft cream cheese for any of your coconut cake frostings that call for cream cheese. The expensive brands of cream cheese are the best to use for good coconut cake frostings. I also might add that if you are going to use cake mixes for coconut cakes, and you are going to add your own spin to them, make sure you use a good brand name cake mixes like Duncan Hines butter recipe or yellow for example. Send me your favorites! Enjoy, readers!
Southern Living Coconut Sheet Cake
Note: This is probably one of the easiest coconut cakes that I have ever researched. This cake is from Southern Living magazine, and it is prepared with a store-bought cake mix. You cannot tell the difference between scratch-made and this one, guys.
Cake:
3 large eggs
8 oz. sour cream
Third cup water
8.5 oz. can cream of coconut
Half tsp. vanilla
1 white cake mix (Duncan Hines)
Frosting:
8 oz. soft cream cheese
1 stick soft butter
2 Tbsp. milk or more if needed
1 tsp. vanilla
16 oz. powdered sugar, sifted
7 oz. pkg. sweetened flaked coconut
Beat eggs at high speed with mixer 2 min. Add sour cream, water, and next 2 ingredients, beating well after each addition. Add cake mix, beating at low speed just until blended. Beat at high speed 2 min. Pour batter into a greased and floured 13x9 cake pan. Bake at 325 for 40-45 min. Cool cake. Cover pan with plastic wrap, and freeze cake one hour. Remove from freezer, and spread frosting on top of chilled cake. Cover and store in
refrigerator. For the frosting, beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with a mixer until creamy; add milk and vanilla, beating well. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating until smooth. If too thick, add a little more milk. If not thick enough, add a little more powdered sugar. The frosting should be easily spreadable. Fold in coconut.
Busy Mama’s Coconut Cake
Note: This coconut cake is a classic busy mom’s coconut cake. It can be prepared overnight and enjoyed the next day, or it may be whipped up in just a few minutes before you go to work, and refrigerated until dinner time. By then, it will be chilled, moist and delicious for all your family to enjoy!
1 Duncan Hines white cake mix (baked according to box)
1 can sweetened condensed milk
8.5 oz. can cream of coconut
2-3 cups sweetened whipped cream (or Cool Whip)
1 bag frozen coconut, thawed (mixed with a little heavy cream)
Bake cake mix as directed, using a greased and floured 13x9 pan. While cake is baking, mix condensed milk and cream of coconut together in a medium bowl. When cake is done, remove from oven. While hot, poke holes in cake with fork and pour the milk mixture over the cake very slowly, letting it soak down in the cake. Let cool for about 20 minutes. Spread whipped cream over cake. If you want to use Cool Whip, that is fine. If you want to use heavy cream, you will need to use chilled heavy cream, and beat it until it is whipped cream, adding a couple tablespoons of sugar to it as it is beating. Sprinkle with coconut (I always marinate my frozen coconut in about a half cup of milk or heavy cream before sprinkling on top of the cake-it makes a moister cake). Refrigerate for several hours, preferably all day or overnight.
Note: Coconut cakes are only good if they are very moist. We here in the south are quite particular about our coconut cakes. They must be moist and full of flavor, but the cake cannot overpower the frosting. The frosting should be rich though. There is an art to constructing a fresh coconut cake in the south. My mother always has baked a fresh coconut cake with light yellow layers and a very rich seven-minute frosting, which is similar to marshmallow crème (or cream of marshmallow). We have also used orange flavored layers in between the coconut cakes as well, and they are just divine.
Editor’s Note: Brock Wetherly Rogers is an experienced southern food writer, overseas traveler, educator and passionate student of the culinary and pastry arts. Please contact him with comments at brockrogers1@gmail.com.
