Lemon Coconut Cake

Well, looking at the date of my last post you would think that I haven’t been baking much in the past month. If that was only the case! Truth be told, I have just been too busy to find the time to sit down and write. Since coming back home to Calgary 2 weeks ago, it feels like time is spinning out of control. Canadian Thanksgiving is already next week and I still have a menu to plan,my mother in law is arriving on  Monday, and we are going to Yellowstone National Park for a few days. Ahhh… tis’ the life.

While I have cherry-almond scones baking in the oven, I thought I would give the recipe for a delicious lemon coconut cake. I made it this past week for a friend of mine who was throwing a party for 125+ guests in honor of her mother’s birthday. I made a large sheet cake plus a 14 inch round cake for this but here is the scaled down version. The centerpiece is a floral arrangement made out of gumpaste.

This recipe is from The Well Decorated Cake by Toba Garrett. If you decide you want to multiply this recipe, please remember to use a kitchen scale to weigh your ingredients so you get accurate results.

This makes two 8-inch or one 10-inch cake pan, 3 inches deep.

LEMON COCONUT CAKE

1 C (8 oz, 230 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 C (1lb,  454 g) granulated sugar
1/3 C (80 ml) or 2.6 oz (75 g) lemon curd (I used homemade but you could certainly use store-bought)
2 Tbsp (1 fl oz, 30 ml) fresh lemon juice
zest of 3 lemons
3 C (330 g) cake flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 C (8 oz, 230 g) shredded coconut (I used equal parts desiccated and sweetened)
5 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 C (8 fl oz, 240 ml) milk

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Spray the cake pans with vegetable spray and line with parchment paper.

Cream together the butter, sugar, zest, lemon juice, and lemon curd for 5 minutes. Stop and scrape the bowl. Cream for an additional minute.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Mix in the coconut. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla.
Alternately add the flour mixture and the egg mixture to the batter in three turns. Mix until the batter is smooth. Pour into the prepared pans.
Bake for 45 for 8-inch pans, or 60-70 minutes for a 10-inch pan (or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean).
This cake lasts up to 3 weeks in the fridge or it freezes beautifully.

Read Full Post »

Happy Easter

Happy Spring!

We’ve had a very busy morning already. As soon as my daughter Scarlet woke up, she was ready to go and look for easter eggs. After finding her basket I was able to get things ready for our brunch at our friends house. I popped some cherry white chocolate and blueberry 7 grain scones that were in the freezer into the oven and set about making some frosting for the cupcakes.  I made the cupcakes last night and since it it spring (or I should say springtime in the Rockies, it was still 2C this morning) I went with Coconut Raspberry cupcakes. The bunnies are made out of chocolate and are so easy and fun to do. You just need some chocolate melts (I am using Wilton), a few disposable plastic piping bags (or parchment paper), a piece of acetate and a drawing of your choice.
You just need to remember that you are working in reverse so put your colors down accordingly. These bunnies having only three colors of  brown, pink, and white.
Lay the acetate over your drawing and pipe a drop of pink for the nose. Then outline the rest in the dark chocolate. 

Let this set for about 10 minutes then pipe in the pink to the inside the ear. Again, let this set for about 10 minutes.  Get the bag filled with the white chocolate and pipe over the entire picture making sure that it touches the outline all the way around. Let it sit until dry (at least an hour) and you are done! Once you flip these over the side that was against the acetate (which is now you front) is now all smooth, nice and shiny. 

Read Full Post »

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs

Whew… so last night we dropped off our cake at Market Mall in Calgary. It will be on display until Saturday, March 20th as part of the Calgary Ronald McDonald House 25th anniversary cake decorating competition. I am very lucky to have been part of the team with Estelle and Kathy, two other members from The Calgary Sugarcraft Guild. We are representing the Guild, an organization I am so proud to be a part of. What’s better than promoting cake decorating?

It was such fun creating this work of art with them. While it took probably 80 hours worth of work to complete, it was a delight  to have the chance to make something on this scale and to have fun with my teammates along the way. We would love to win the people’s choice award, so we will keep our fingers crossed until Saturday….

set up in the mall, through plexiglass

Read Full Post »