SMS: Fluffy Coconut Cake with Lime Filling

This week’s Sweet Melissa Sundays was chosen by Karen of Karen’s Cakes Cookies & More: fluffy coconut cake with passion fruit filling.  In a move that won’t surprise anyone who knows me, I waited until the last minute to make this cake.  I was working as quickly as possible to put it together yesterday afternoon, racing against the clock to finish before I lost the natural light to photograph it.  One of the nice things about this cake, however, is that it didn’t have to be that way.  Had I planned ahead, I could have made each of the individual components ahead of time and simply assembled the cake yesterday afternoon.

Speaking of components, this cake has three.  First, there’s the cake itself, a basic white cake recipe.  I scaled back the recipe, making just 1/4 and baking the layers in two 4.5″ springform pans.  I wound up with extra batter, and discovered I’d overfilled the pans slightly when they overflowed (just barely) in the oven.  Next time I’ll probably either use three 4.5″ pans or go with just two layers in larger pans (maybe 6″?).  Sandwiched between the layers of the cake is a fruit filling.  The recipe called for passion fruit, but I went with lime because as hard as I tried, I couldn’t find passion fruit juice anywhere.  Where the full recipe called for 7 egg yolks and 2 whole eggs, I used 1 egg yolk and 1 whole egg in my 1/4-sized batch to make the division of the eggs easier and it worked perfectly.  The filling reminded me of curd, but unlike curd recipes I’ve made in the past, didn’t include any butter.  Finally, the entire cake is covered in coconut cream cheese frosting.  I confess that I didn’t use the frosting from the book as it called for cream of coconut, which I didn’t have on hand.  I turned instead to my go-to cream cheese icing from Martha Stewart (you can find the recipe here).  The only coconut in my cake was the flakes I threw on after it was frosted.

I almost sat out this week since I was so short on time, but I’m glad I baked along to discover this white cake recipe.  It is without a doubt one of my favorite cakes I’ve made – tender and moist, but with a tight, sturdy crumb – in one word, delicious!  The filling was just ok for me, perhaps it would have been better with the passion fruit.  Of course I loved the cream cheese frosting, I just wasn’t sure it was the right choice for this cake.  The components didn’t work together as well as I’d have liked.  I’ll absolutely use the white cake recipe again though, maybe with a raspberry or strawberry filling (jam would be easy) and buttercream frosting.

Thanks to Karen for hosting this week!  She will share the recipe on her blog today or you can find it on pages 96-99 of The Sweet Melissa Baking Book.  We’re off to Shane’s last big race of the year this morning – a marathon – and it looks like the weather will be perfect!  Hope everyone enjoys their Sunday 🙂