Coconut layer cakes are often towering white pastries, generously coated with shredded coconut so that they resemble an earth-bound cloud. The filling between the cake layers is usually lemon, and the frosting is a fluffy vanilla-tinged affair. Classic coconut cakes are delicious, but limiting. Coconut is an ingredient that pairs well with so many flavors that there is no reason not to divert from this traditional flavor construction once in a while.
This coconut layer cake has two fluffy layers of cake that are made with coconut milk, which infuses a subtle coconut flavor into them and adds a nice richness, as coconut milk is relatively high in fat (low fat/light coconut milk is fine for this recipe). I separated the eggs and beat the whites to soft peaks before folding them into the rest of the cake batter, giving the cake a slightly more airy texture than it might otherwise have had. It’s soft and fluffy, not dense. In between the two cake layers, I put a layer of coconut filling that I borrowed from one of Paula Deen’s recipes. Made with sour cream, it is creamy and delicious (I wanted to eat it on its own!), with a fantastic coconut flavor to it. It isn’t too thick and, as the cake sits, it infuses some additional moisture into the cake. This helps keep the cake tasting fresh a little longer.
Chocolate is a great match for coconut and so I topped this coconut layer cake with a coconut-infused chocolate frosting. I used coconut milk in the frosting, which again provides a subtle coconut flavor, and opted to use shredded coconut as a garnish. If you really want to go coconut crazy, you can try finely chopping some and mixing it into the frosting, but be warned that the added texture may make it difficult to spread onto the cake.
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When I bake brownies or bar cookies, I frequently line the baking dish with lightly greased aluminum foil. It saves me time on cleanup, and it is very easy to simply lift the whole batch out of the pan when I’m ready to slice it. But when I bake cakes, I prefer to use parchment paper because I need to remove the cake from the pan while it is still hot and a circle of parchment paper will slide off very easily when a cake is turned out. Lifting a hot – and therefore delicate – cake out of the pan with foil, which could tear, is not a great idea (you can guess how I might know this).
It’s easy to line a round pan with parchment paper. All you need is a pair of scissors. I’ve taken pictures of the process step-by-step.
First, get out your pan and turn it upside down. Next, take a large piece of parchment – large enough to cover the bottom of the pan – and fold it in half. Once it’s folded, continue to fold it into quarters, then eighths.
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Nothing says “Easter” quite like dissecting a rabbit piece by piece. Of course, I’m referring to chocolate rabbits! They’re staples of the season and even if you don’t celebrate the holiday, it’s hard to pass up the terrific deals on bunny-shaped chocolates that crop up during Easter season. Chocolate bunnies aren’t the only rabbit-themed Easter choices, however. You can also opt for Pull Apart Bunny Cakes. Individual cakes baked in this silicone bunny cake pan fit together – once cooled – into the shape of a rabbit. The cupcakes can be frosted as a whole cake and the pieces can be pulled off one by one when the rabbit is served. The advantage to doing this is that the little cakes bake faster than a whole cake, and it is a little more fun to eat than your standard cake.
Of course, you don’t need to be limited by what you can do with a pan. You can take a cue from Candy Addict and bake your own Easter Bunny Cake. This cake starts off as a sheet cake, is cut into several pieces and rearranged into a bunny shape. A few extra cuts with the knife (the cuts needed to shape the bunny are very large) and you’ll have a pull-apart cake of your own without ordering the pan to do it for you.
With chocolate bunnies, I tend to go for the ears first. I’m not sure what I’d choose with a pull apart bunny cake!
“By cracky!” is one of those great, old-timey phrases that you don’t hear too much any more. Although if you have some older relatives it might come out once in a while in place of “by golly” or “by gosh” (or some similar euphemism). And, you might start hearing it around the kitchen if you add these to your repertoire because they’re By Cracky Bars! The recipe comes from the 1953 Pillsbury Bake Off booklet, and was the 2nd prize winner of the junior baker contest that year.
The bars are quite unusual in flavor and texture, but are easy to make and deliver a lovely presentation with all their stripey layers. They come in somewhere between a pound cake and a cookie in texture. Like a pound cake, they are fairly dense, but not heavy at all and quite tender when you bite into them. Like a cookie, they’re a little bit drier than a traditional cake would be, but have just enough of a crunchy texture that the whole combination works perfectly. They go very well with milk.
The batter/dough for the top and bottom layers of the bar is the same. To one portion of the batter, you stir in a small amount of melted chocolate and a generous amount of chopped walnuts. To the rest of the batter, you simply add chocolate chips. The middle layer is actually graham crackers that have been laid between the chocolate and vanilla batters. The graham adds a subtle crispiness, but is very subtle and seems to add more to the presentation than anything else.
These bars keep well and are easy to travel with. They’ll appeal to those who like cookies and those who like cake, and will definitely find fans with the chocolate-loving crowd thanks to all the chips in the top layer of batter. The bars are not nearly as tall as they appear in the photo above; the bars are probably no more than an inch high. I cut my batch into smaller squares, rather than longer bars, so that I could serve more people with it.
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