Sunday, November 22, 2009

Coconut Cake Bleh

I have to admit, I was disappointed with the way my coconut cake came out. This was extra disappointing, since I have been looking forward to trying this for so long.

I made, as advertised, Paula Deen's recipe. I didn't have self rising flour in the house and made a last minute executive decision to use the all purpose I did have. The cakes tasted good but were definitely more dense than Paula intended. I now know that self rising flour really does make a difference!

The bigger problem was with the frosting. I followed the recipe, improvising a double burner that I don't have, and beat the ingredients for exactly seven minutes. By the time those seven minutes had passed, I had something that very nearly resembled frosting. Unfortunately, it was still a little thin and runny. Paula Deen doesn't note what to do in this case — does it thicken upon standing? The concoction is hot at this point, so maybe it gets stiffer as it cools? Who knows? Well, now I do: it does not get thicker upon standing or cooling. In retrospect, I think I probably needed to keep beating it to get more air in it, but I didn't want to over cook the ingredients. This means that despite tasting pretty good, my cake looked a bit like a hot, runny mess.

I love coconut cake, but I don't love this recipe. In addition to the trouble listed above, I thought the filling was a little weird. I would have preferred something a little sweeter. I'm glad I gave this one a shot, but I'll attempt a different coconut cake next time around.

The filling


The troublesome frosting


Assembled but not frosted


Final, ugly cake

3 comments:

Dorrie said...

That is some icky frosting! I was thinking about doing the Paula Dean recipe, but now I don't think I will. I hope it tasted good at least...

Tori said...

Dorrie--I think you can do better. Paula Deen was a bust this time. If you find something else, I'm going to try yours next time. :)

ellebee said...

Just more frosting to love! I don't think it looks that bad. :)