Friday, December 25, 2009

Snowy White Coconut cake



Its a white Christmas here in Washington DC! We are here to celebrate the holidays with our friends and this cake is a reflection of our snowy white environ! Though the cake has a wintry appearance, its inspiration is quite tropical. Its inspired by one of my favorite cocktails, the Pina Colada. So it has coconut, pineapple and rum!

Back in the summer I had tried this delicious
raspberry and buttermilk cake recipe from Gourmet. I used this recipe as the base for the coconut cake, substituting the buttermilk with coconut milk and the raspberries with pineapple. I also drizzled the cake with a liberal dose of rum, slathered it with a cream cheese frosting and topped it with some sweetened coconut flakes. Its a fittingly decadent treat for Christmas :).

Before I sign off with the recipe, I wanted to point out that I have signed up for a
recipe marathon on one of my favorite blogs, One Hot Stove. So this is the first of my seven posts starting from the 25th to the 31st of this month! I have never blogged daily before and I am quite excited.

Merry Christmas to you all, I will be back tomorrow with another recipe from our Christmas dinner!

Ingredients for the cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4
teaspoon salt
1/2
stick unsalted butter, softened
2/3
cup sugar
1/2
teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1
large egg
1/2
cup well-shaken coconut milk (I used the lite and unsweetened version)
1
cup canned/fresh pineapple (about 5 oz)
2 tablespoons of rum (or more as desired)

For the frosting:
1 cup reduced fat cream cheese
4 tablespoons coconut milk
3 tablespoons powdered sugar (more if you prefer it sweeter)
1 cup sweetened coconut flakes

- Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.
- Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Beat butter and 2/3 cup sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 minutes, then beat in vanilla. Add egg and beat well.
- At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.
- Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter pineapple chunks evenly over top.
- Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate and flip .
- Drizzle with a liberal amount of rum and cool completely.
- For the frosting beat cream cheese, coconut milk and powdered sugar till combined and fluffy.
- Slather it onto the cake top and sides and top off with sweetened coconut flakes.
- Enjoy :)

I am sending this as an entry to the Jingle Event hosted by the lovely Priyanka at her blog.

10 comments:

  1. Looks just like fresh snow. like the vanilla cake and coconuts on that looks beautiful.

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  2. Talk about coconut and I am there..Just baked a apple-date cake and I've never used coconut milk in a cake. May be the next cake I make will be super moist because of this

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  3. Hi Radhika,

    That cake looks so decadent -- and I love how you used light coconut milk -- that's what I usually buy. Really lovely!

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  4. i guess i gooa try this soon,,will be glad if u send this for jingle event at my blog,..;-)

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  5. wow..nice and very tempting cake. I love the coconut garnishing!!too good.

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  6. Cake looks very tempting. Pic is awesome, a definite white Christmas. You have a nice space with interesting recipes.

    Chitchat
    http://chitchatcrossroads.blogspot.com/

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  7. Hey Radhika,
    So, u r going to take a page off of 'Julie and Julia'? Have fun with the 7 recepies in 7 days! Look forward to reading them :-)
    nipul

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  8. Tastes just as good as it looks. The pineapple-coconut combination was indeed quite fantastic.

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  9. Love the tropical flavors of this cake ... it's such a nice juxtaposition to the cold outside! Perfectly decadent too ... delicious!

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  10. Thanks everyone! I had a lot of fun making this cake. The credit for the picture (actually all the pictures on the blog) goes to my husband.

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