Clearly Delicious: Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream Icing & Fondant

This blog post may be the very end of me. Why? Well, let's just say I accomplished one of those rare culinary tasks this past weekend that I, myself, cannot seem to believe I actually did. What did I do? Well, I started by baking a double batch (4 layers) of a coconut cake that called for real coconut and coconut milk. Then, I made a double batch of homemade coconut/cream cheese/buttercream icing. Then, once the cake cooled, I carved it into the shape of...a unicorn. Covered it in my homemade icing and then covered it in a layer of fondant (which I also made myself). Then, decorated it with buttercream icing and voila--a mind blowing unicorn!

Now, the cake looked pretty amazing. I watched episodes of Ace of Cakes whilst performing this activity and telling myself I could do it. I don't know if you've ever taken 4 circular discs of cake and attempted to create any kind of animal out of it, but let's just say it was beyond intimidating. In fact, I didn't even take pictures of the pre-icing cake stage because I didn't want people to see any flaws I may have had in the first step of the process.

So why did I make a unicorn cake? It's not every day of the week you slave for 10 hours over a specialty item in the kitchen. This weekend, I had the best reason to create one--the one and only Lydia Dorsey was celebrating her 21st birthday! So, unicorn cake in hand, I drove for three hours with my magical friend in the back carriage of my SUV. It was quite a fantastic journey and worth every hour of effort to bring her this baked good! Lydia loved the cake (as you will hopefully see from below photos) and it tasted amazing. Coconut cake is not a highly marketable baked good, but in this company, it was a clearly delicious treat.

Coconut Cake
This recipe comes from Elise Bauer over at Simply Recipes and can be found here. One of Elise's co-contributers, Garret from Vanilla Garlic, posted this recipe as a cupcake recipe in the fall, but I think it makes a much more impressive cake. I've made multiple changes here from the original--first, the frosting recipe, although initally Garrett's has been reworked into a hybrid coconut cream cheese and coconut butter cream icing, and second, the cake recipe is not only doubled, but also calls for a cakier creation (cake flour instead of all purpose). The resulting product is a dense, wedding-cake-like creation, and the icing adds so many layers of flavor it practically melts in your mouth. That's right, a cake that MELTS in your mouth.

Coconut Cake
Ingredients
* 1 1/2 cups unsalted/salted butter, room temp.
* 2 1/2 cups sugar
* 6 eggs, room temp.
* 2 cups coconut milk, or 1 regular size can of coconut milk
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 4 1/2 cups cake flour
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 cup sweetened desiccated coconut

Coconut Cream Cheese Butter Cream Icing
Ingredients
* 2 sticks of butter, room temp. (or1 cup butter, room temp.)
* 1 8 oz package of Philly Cream Cheese, room temp.
* 1/2 cup sweetened desiccated coconut
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 2-3 cups powdered sugar (probably more on the three side, but you'll have to taste as you add for personal preference and texture)

Cake Baking Instructions:
1.) Preheat oven to 350 F. Cream butter until light and fluffy, then add sugars a little at a time, and cream until light and fluffy a second time. Don't forget to scrape down your mixing bowl during this process!
2.) Add the eggs, one at a time. Allow for 30 seconds between each addition so that the eggs are properly mixed in (this will take 3 minutes). Again, make sure to scrape down the sides of your mixing bowl as you are doing this step.
3.) Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flour, salt, baking powder, and mix to integrate. Set aside.
4.) In another separate bowl, mix 1 can coconut milk with 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix to integrate.
5.) Now, add both the dry and wet ingredient mixtures to the butter/sugar/egg mixture in your master kitchen bowl (i.e., if using a kitchenaid mixer, the one you're electronically mixing). Garret from Vanilla Garlic suggests adding 1/3 dry ingredients first, then 1/2 wet ingredients; then, keep adding until all ingredients are fully in the bowl. I think this method works well, but the idea is that you NEVER add all of one ingredient at once, but that you vary your dry and wet ingredients during this process. Remember what the Mighty Alton Brown says, "Remember kids, speed kills." This is very true when baking a cake!
6.) Once you have mixed all of the ingredients, scrape down the sides of your bowl and mix one or two more times on low to make sure all of your ingredients are integrated.
7.) Pour into 4 circular cake pans--I used 9 in. diameter pans, but as any cook knows, you can use whatever pans you have in your kitchen. Cakes are amazingly flexible during the batter-to-cooked cake stage. You can pour very thin layers of cake and bake until done, or very thick layers of cake and bake until done. I did 4 regular sized cakes, but you certainly can divvy up the batter according to preference.
8.) Bake for about 25 mins., but make sure to check at 15 minutes and 20 minutes (to prevent over cooking and burning).
9.) Allow to cool on a cooling rack and then proceed to the carving/icing instructions.

Carving Instructions
1.) Are the cakes cooled? Are you sure? Okay, move onto step two.

2.) Set up two cakes next to each other and map out how big you want your unicorn to be. You'll use the other two cakes to carve out details--a horn, a snout, an ear, etc. You get the picture.
3.) Since I can't really articulate how one carves a unicorn...really, I don't think I can do it without weird made up words and confusing anecdotes, take a look at another food blogger's attempt to create what she called The Unicorn of Trial. I followed her basic idea in cake carving and even used her fondant recipe. This blogger at Cardamon and Lavender basically calls the carving process her "winging it skills." I believe, yes, "winging it" is the terminology that you should use here.
4.) Somehow...create a unicorn, then, proceed to the next step to ice your cake.

Icing Instructions

1.) First, prepare the icing in your kitchenaid mixer: cream the butter and cream cheese together (about 3-5 minutes).
2.) Scrape down the sides, mix in two teaspoons of vanilla extract, and slowly add powdered sugar while mixing on low-to-medium speed.
3.) Fold in the coconut and spread frosting over cooled cakes (you should know by now that you can't ice a cake without cooling it properly first!).
4.) Voila! Once you've iced the cake, you suddenly see a real unicorn take shape. It's absolutely amazing. Now, you can choose to roll out and add the fondant, or wait until the following day to do so (at this point, you will have been baking, carving, icing for 3-4 hours, so you'll probably need a break. Given how important the fondant detailing is, I'd suggest taking that break now!).
5.) However, if you've given your cake a 24 hour resting period, roll out and place fondant over cake. It's best if you can do this in one layer, but given the size of the cake, there will probably be a seam where you've attached two very large fondant layers. Carve off the excess fondant using a knife (I prefer a pizza cutter) and press into cake gently. The coconut icing will adhere the fondant to the cake like delicious, sugary glue.
6.) Decorate with colored icings, sprinkles, and cut out fondant. I'll post and detail the fondant recipe in tomorrow's entry. It's shockingly simple and pretty easy to do!

And now, a photo montage of Lydia, her unicorn, and such: