Chelsey's Coconut Cake!!

Ahhhhhhh I'm soooooo excited that in 4 days my new brother Mark will be marrying one of the sweetest, most gorgeous girls I know! Since Matt and I both came up for Mark's bachelor party, Adrianne (my new mom!) decided to take us out to Edmonton for a girls day. Needless to say, I was excited. I wanted to do something special for her since every girl deserves to get spoiled, especially before her wedding. I picked out some lingerie since we were kind of making this trip into a VanKoughnett thrown stagette and I figured what the heck, I'll make a cake. I practiced making a corset cake (and it actually turned out ok) but when I went to make the real one nothing turned out right and it ended up in the bin... urgh, not my finest moment :S After looking through some photos online I figured I'd give it a whirl and hope for the best...

Coconut Ombre Cake

- 1 1/2cup white sugar (It was a little sweet, I would only use 1 cup next time)

- 1/2 cup shortening

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/2 tsp almond extract

- 1/2 tsp coconut extract

- 1 cup milk

- 2 cup unsifted flour

- 4 tsp baking powder

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 4 eggs whites, beaten

- 3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

- Food coloring

As this recipe makes only two 9" rounds, I ended up making it twice. I decided to try wrapping the pans in aluminum foil and then spraying them with pam so the cake wouldn't stick. This worked SO well!!!!! Like amazing!! I will definitely do this again next time. The recipe is super simple... First beat the egg whites until stiff, then set aside. 

 Then cream the sugar, shortening and flavorings. In the second batch, I added blue coloring at this step too.

Next I sifted the flour, baking powder, and salt several times until there weren't any little clumps of powder yet. Then I alternated between adding milk, coconut and the flour mixture to the sugar/shortening, mixing after each addition. Once combined, I carefully folded in the egg whites. I poured half the batter in a pan, then added 2 drops of blue coloring and continued to fold over the batter. Once the color was mixed in evenly, I poured it in a second pan and baked at 400F for 20 minutes. While the cakes were in the oven, I made the recipe again, the only difference was adding more blue color to make the batter two darker shades. Once cool, I carved a thin layer off the top and bottom of each cake. This ensures that no brown lines will show when the cake is sliced and served.

Coconut Buttercream Frosting

- 2 sticks room temp margarine

- 2 cups shortening (omg... I know... ahh)

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/2 tsp almond extract

- 1/2 tsp coconut extract

- 8 cups powdered sugar (it was a little sweet.. I think I could get away with 7 cups, might help)

- 1 tbsp meringue powder

- Water or milk if necessary

- Food coloring
- White chocolate curls (optional)

I didn't pay too much attention to the icing while I was making it (Matt had just come home so we were chatting and packing for our visit). I mixed the margarine, shortening, salt and extracts together. Once they were smooth I added the meringue powder and icing sugar. I made 1 1/4 batches total, adding drops until I had made white and 3 shades of blue. I left a larger amount of icing white to crumb coat and layer the cake.

In preparation of constructing the cake, I layered pieces of aluminum foil around the edges of a plate and then placed the darkest layer in the center. Any crumbs or icing that falls onto the plate will land on the foil, which can then be easily removed once finished. It makes the plate clean up time about 5 seconds. Between each cake layer I spread white icing and sprinkled blue white chocolate curls. I had melted, dyed, and re-solidified white chocolate before and decided to add it, figured it couldn't hurt. Once the layers were finished, I thinly covered the entire cake in white icing. 

Making Pretty Petals

Before you start anything.... make sure you have enough icing bags!! I made the mistake of having 4 icing colors but only 2 bags :( So I had to empty, clean, and re-fill the bags when I needed to switch colors. Urgh... so annoying!! I was using a #10 piping tip but it got stuck on one of the bags. Since I don't have anything close to it, I just piped icing out of the coupler base. It actually worked better!

I started at the top of the cake side, completed the circumference and continued to work my way down to the bottom. I decided to mirror the cake layers... white fading to darker blue on the bottom. For each petal, add a dime-nickel size button of icing, then line your thin spatula to its center and drag to the side. Add another dot over the icing smear and repeat. At the end of the row, simply make a button (it won'v be very noticeable!!). 

For the top of the cake, I made a dark blue button in the center. Using the same method, I made concentric circles of petals fading through the shades of icing. It took me about 3 hours to do the icing. However, quite a bit of time was spent changing icing bags. 

Matt's Grandma spoiled me with two amazing cake carriers that I absolutely LOVE (you can bring anything anywhere when you have a round and rectangular carrier :) lol This cake survived an 8 hour drive from Fernie to Whitecourt and then another 2 hours to edmonton... Not a scratch on it! We surprised Chelsey with it and some presents after our girls day of lunch, pedicures, a movie and drinks.. it was so much fun!!!