At our house when its your birthday, you can choose any dessert you'd like to celebrate your special day.  This year Sophie's pick was for a coconut layer cake.  I'm pretty sure that she's never had one, but no amount of coercion could get her to choose any sort of cupcake in its place.  So, I found a recipe that looked promising and set out to make it.  I made some changes to the recipe to make it non-dairy and also to remedy issues I had along the way.  It was touch-and-go for awhile, but in the end, we had cake:


A few tips:
1. Be very careful when transferring the cake into the refrigerator to set, its very slick and top heavy and could topple over VERY EASILY.
2. Use buttercream frosting instead of the traditional seven minute frosting because if things go south and it starts to separate WHILE ON THE CAKE, you'll end up with avalanches of cake sliding off the plate just moments before the party.
3. Check with the child first to be sure they actually LIKE the taste of coconut instead of just the IDEA of coconut.  In the words of Martin - "I don't like the TASTE of coconut, but I DO like coconut bras."  Seriously, who doesn't.



In the end, the cake really was good.  I liked the buttercream frosting combined with the coconut, and it helped to hold the whole thing together.  The frosting and coconut mixture makes a very forgiving cover for a cake, which is good if you're a layer cake novice like me.  And in case you have any cake leftover, it only improves with time.


Print it: Coconut Layer Cake