Birthday Coconut Cake with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Monday was my birthday. I’ve been a bit melancholy lately so I haven’t been in much of a celebratory mood, but I’d been thinking of making a coconut cake or pie for a while so I took the bull by the horns so to speak. Surprisingly, I had a really hard time finding a recipe for coconut cake that actually used coconut in the cake itself rather than just the frosting. I ended up mashing together two separate recipes (this one and that one) and I’m pretty happy with the result, although next time I won’t be lazy and I’ll actually make a real seven-minute frosting to go with it.

I'm very happy with my cake!

It's always best to get help when blowing out the candles.

A bonus: the cake itself is dairy-free, cause it uses coconut oil rather than butter. I haven’t found a really great dairy-free frosting recipe, but don’t despair I’m still researching!

For the cake:

This is what you need:

6 eggs

300 grams (1 ½ cups) coconut milk

45 grams (7 Tbsp.) grated coconut

200 grams (1 cup) raw cane sugar

1 gram (1/8 tsp.) salt

16 grams (4 tsp.) baking powder

200 grams (1 cup) coconut oil, melted

250 grams (2 cups) flour – I like to mix and match flours so this time I used 75grams whole wheat flour, 60 grams spelt flour and 115 grams regular cake flour, this combination turned out great, the cake was soft and fluffy and had pretty beigish color that I prefer to just plain white.

This is what you do:

Preheat oven to 175°C (350°F). Grease two 9-inch cake pans with some coconut oil – or get a really short person to do it for you.

First things first: stir the grated coconut into the coconut milk and let it soak while you get everything else ready.

Separate the egg whites from the yolks and beat egg whites until stiff (like whipped cream).

Put the yolks in a larger bowl and add the sugar, salt, and coconut oil mine was a bit hard cause it’s starting to get chilly here so I put it in the microwave on high for ten seconds, it wasn’t actually melted but it was soft, I didn’t want to add warm coconut oil to the eggs lest they start cooking. 

Beat everything together till smooth.

Stir the baking powder into the flour mixture, and add to yolk mixture. Add the coconut milk with the shredded coconut. I like to alternate wet and dry ingredients since most recipes ask you to do this, so I alternated the flour and the coconut milk but not sure that it’s actually necessary here. Beat until well combined and remember to scrape down the sides and bottom well while mixing.

Gently fold your egg whites into the batter and pour the batter evenly into your pans. Bake 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the cakes cool well before icing.

For the lemon cream cheese frosting:

This is what you need:

150 – 160 grams Philadelphia cream cheese

120 grams (1 packet – 1 cup) confectioner’s sugar

1 large lemon

2 TBS coconut milk

This is what you do:

Beat the cream cheese until well combined and fluffy

Add the powdered sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice and coconut milk. Mix well, but don’t overbeat or it’ll get runny. Spread a thin layer of the filling on top of each cake.

At this point you can make 7 minute frosting (I don’t have a recipe up, but it’s very basic and easy to find) and use that and some grated coconut to make it look really awesome.

I wanted something lighter so I just lightly frosted with the lemon cream cheese, doesn’t look as good, but tastes great!

It helps to have eager dishwashers afterwards:

Of course, you must try it right away: 

Happily it was pronounced very good:

And then of course presents were opened:

Linking up with Alli-n-son today for Sweet tooth friday!