Make Ahead
Coconut Cake with Ambrosia
- Serves 12
Author Notes
Coconut cake has always been a special occasion dessert for me, and with ambrosia, it's a fixture on my holiday table, along with pumpkin and lemon icebox pies. I'd never been aware of the ambrosia element until I moved to Memphis as a college student, but it adds wonderfully to the cake. It is the wonderfully simple frosting that makes this cake. Should be made at least three days in advance, and can be frozen for up to two weeks. —Kayb
What You'll Need
Ingredients
- Coconut Cake
-
1 cup
butter, softened
-
2 cups
sugar
-
3 1/2 cups
cake flour
-
3 teaspoons
baking powder
-
1 cup
whole milk
-
1 teaspoon
vanilla
-
8
egg whites, stiffly beaten
-
FROSTING
-
2 cups
sour cream
-
1 cup
sugar
-
1 cup
shredded fresh, or fresh-frozen, coconut
-
1 cup
whipping cream
-
1/3 cup
sugar
- Ambrosia
-
2 cups
mandarin orange segments
-
2 cups
pineapple, cut in small pieces (tidbit size)
-
1 cup
grated fresh, or fresh-frozen, coconut
Directions
- Coconut Cake
- Blend the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Stir in vanilla
- Sift flour with baking powder. Add to butter/sugar mixture alternately with milk, mixing well after each addition.
- Fold in beaten egg whites.
- Bake in preheated 350 degree oven, in three greased, floured cake pans, for 25-30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes on clean. Cool on a wire rack.
- Mix sour cream, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 1/2 cups coconut; reserve about 2/3 cup. Spread remainder between layers of cake, after cake has completely cooled. (You can make more filling and cut the layers in half horizontally to make a coconut torte --it gets wonderfully moist that way.)
- Combine cream and 1/3 cup sugar and whip until stiff; fold in reserved filling. Frost outside of cake. Sprinkle with reserved coconut. Refrigerate or freeze.
- Ambrosia
- Take about 6 of the orange segments and press them through a sieve to extract juice in a bowl. Add remaining segments, pineapple and coconut. Stir. Serve with coconut cake.
Contest Entries
I'm a business professional who learned to cook early on, and have expanded my tastes and my skills as I've traveled and been exposed to new cuisines and new dishes. I love fresh vegetables, any kind of protein on the grill, and breakfasts that involve fried eggs with runny yolks. My recipes tend toward the simple and the Southern, with bits of Asia or the Mediterranean or Mexico thrown in here and there. And a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a float in the lake, as pictured, is a pretty fine lunch!
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