Easter, Part Deux

Last week we had a good Easter. Charlie went to town on his chocolate bunny (and paid for it later, poor guy). It didn't occur to me until the day of that John and I hadn't gotten Charlie anything for Easter. My mom, of course, went nuts and got him this giant chocolate bunny, lots of chocolate (which, he probably won't be eating after the unfortunate reaction to the bunny) and a stuffed frog. I still felt a little bad. The next day, John was supposed to stop at the store and get Charlie diapers (after the bunny incident, more diapers were definitely in order) . . . and came home with a tricycle. Now, I didn't feel as bad for forgetting Easter! Charlie loves his new bike. It's a great outside toy for him, which he needed. I'll post a video of him riding it . . . someday. I have tons of videos that I need to edit, but I just keep putting off because I really don't understand the software yet. But when I do, I'm sure it'll blow your mind. (Not really)

My Easter project was a coconut cake, a traditional Southern Easter dessert (which my family and I have never had! Blasphemy.). On the front of "Better Homes and Gardens" they had a beautiful coconut cake. The recipe was hardcore: you had to buy a real coconut and shave it, etc. I was all about that. I'd always wanted to crack a coconut. But in talking to my wise sis-in-law Laura (who has acute hair fear), I realized that the texture of coconut cake would in fact feel like, in her words, "a wad of hair in your mouth." Ewwww . . . So I went online and found this recipe which featured toasted coconut instead of the chewy stuff . . . not to mention, it had traditional buttercream flavored with pineapple and orange zest instead of that nasty (and time consuming)7 minute frosting. Not to mention, it was way easier. Heck, yeah. It was very easy to make and even easier to put together . . . I appreciate any cake that covers up a botched frosting job (and I ALWAYS botch frosting . . . I'm not blessed with my mom's cake skills. I can make a cake taste good . . . but I can't make it look good!) and toasted coconut does just that. Not to mention it's crunchy and tasty . . . not hairy.

But, I must say I was disappointed in the texture of the finished cake. It was far too crumbly. I only had one bite (sigh) but I was disappointed. Maybe a half butter half oil mixture would solve the problem. Or maybe poking holes in the warm cake and spreading some cream of coconut on top? I don't know. But the frosting was fantastic. I doubled the recipe (the original is just for a 9 x 13 cake) and I only used 1/2 a tablespoon of orange zest and I used pineapple juice instead of orange juice. I'm not a big fan of orange flavor in baking . . . it's kind of obnoxious and I was afraid it'd overpower the coconut. If any of you bake this and figure out how to make this less crumbly, let me know! Wow, I've babbled way too long about this . . .