TWD: Apple-Coconut Family Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Amber of Cobbler du Monde: apple-coconut family cake.  It’s busy around here so the best thing about this cake is the ease with which it can be thrown together.  Just a few bowls and a whisk and you’re good to go.  Even better, there’s no butter in the recipe so you don’t have to wait for it to come to room temperature (and can instead save it for all the cookies you’re baking!).  I went full size on the cake this week but made a few other changes to the recipe.  We never have yogurt in the house so I substituted buttermilk.  I skipped the rum as well as the glaze for the top of the finished cake.  The baking time for my cake was also about 10 minutes longer than Dorie’s 45-50 minute recommendation.  

As I went to photograph the cake I realized it’s now only 11 days until Christmas and therefore high time I pulled out cute seasonal plates.  My mom bought me these gingerbread man plates from the Williams-Sonoma Outlet at an after-Christmas sale last year so I’ve been waiting forever to use them.  I think they’re adorable and I love that the design on each of the plates is slightly different (though I realized afterward that I didn’t take any pictures actually demonstrating that to you – oops).  You’ll probably be seeing them a bunch over the next 2 weeks until I have to put them away again 🙂

But, back to the cake.  I think a lot of the TWD bakers were hesitant about the apple/coconut combination, but since I like both flavors, I expected to like the cake.  And I did.  The coconut didn’t add much flavor, it was more of a textural element for me.  Although Dorie suggested unsweetened coconut, I didn’t have any on hand so I used sweetened and as a result, the cake was fairly sweet.  It probably would have been smart to reduce the sugar the in recipe but I didn’t think of it until it was too late.  The apples keep the cake really moist and I can definitely see this one getting better the longer it sits.  Breakfast or dessert – your choice, this rustic cake would work well for either.

Many thanks to Amber for hosting this week!  You can find the recipe for the cake on her blog here or on page 214 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.