I'm Coco For Coconut!

 Remember my sleepless night? About a week ago? Well I took care of that. I finally made my coconut cake!  I covered it in creamy vanilla buttercream and sweet, chewy coconut flakes. I went to Hobby Lobby just for this cake and got some new 6 inch cake pans, a turntable, and an icing spatula. The cake pans are just the cutest! So I came right home after I got them and got my bake on. I was so excited to finally make my cake! So much, I got a little carried away and forgot I was making white cake... 3 egg yolks later and I was off to the store for another set of ingredients. Oops! Trial and error I thought. How many times has this happened to me? I've lost count. 

Here's what I had to have:

1 box white cake mix
3 egg whites
1/2 cup of vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup of light coconut milk
1 bag sweetened flaked coconut
1 1/4 sticks of butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 pound powered sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup milk

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl mix the first 4 ingredients according to package directions. The coconut milk is replacing the water. Take the 1/4 stick of butter and coat each cake pan then dust with flour. You could use cooking spray as well. Fill each cake pan half way and bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of each cake comes out clean.
Cool in the pan for about 10 minutes. Turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely. Once cooled level off the top and prepare to get your frost on!

To make the frosting:
In a mixing bowl cream the stick of butter with the vanilla. Gradually add the powdered sugar, adding the milk gradually. You might not need all the milk. You want the icing to be thick but creamy and smooth so it's easy to spread. If you have left over coconut milk feel free to use that instead of dairy. It's a nice alternative.


Set your first layer of cake on your turntable or whatever you're going to put it on. Slather on a big helping of buttercream. Spread it all around and cover it coconut. Then put your second layer on top of that. Add another giant dollop of buttercream and cover that cake, working from the top, going down the sides. You don't have to worry about making it really pretty. Once the cake is blanketed in rich decadence start piling on the coconut! Just start lightly pressing handfuls into the sides and top of the cake. Finally, cut that cake and eat it! It's like being transported to a tropical island. Yummy!!!

Like the flowers? They're pineapple!!!!!! Super easy to make too! Simply peel a pineapple and thinly slice it. Get your fave flower cookie cutter and cut out some flowers. Make sure you get the core in there, it's an essential part to the flower. And, it's really cool looking. 

Preheat your over to 225 degrees. Place pineapple flowers on a cookie sheet (I lined mine with a silicon pad) and bake for 1 - 1.5 hours. Turn the pineapple over and bake for about another hour. When they're done they will look like flowers! Pretty, sweet and tangy little flowers. Mine looked like this:

They naturally develop the shape and texture so you don't have to worry about shaping them. And the core beads up to look like the center of a flower! So neat.