Cake Love

Have I mentioned that when I grow up I want my own bakery? OK, only every other day, right? This is the cake I decided to bake for this weekend's dinner at our friend's house. It was a hit, thank you Paula Deen. The recipe for this coconut cake is in her "The Lady & Sons, Just Desserts" cookbook. If you don't have that one, go right out and pick it up. The strawberry shortcake recipe is devine, the peach cobbler to die for. You can probably get the recipe from Paula's website or the Food Network as well.

Step one, enlist the help of the best little sous chef in Texas, or Virginia Beach, or wherever your casa may be:



See why he likes being the bake-a-cake helper? Um-hum, Mama didn't raise no fool!

This cake has a filling that you pour over the warm layers, poke holes with the wrong end of a wooden spoon - you better behave yourself or mama might swat you with the right end of that spoon! Not that I have ever done such a thing....

Whenever I make a cake with more than two layers, I stabilize the layers by poking drinking straws, toothpicks or small dowels into the cake to keep it from shifting. All my peeps know to look out for the straws and it has become a tradition that getting the straw in your piece of cake is good luck.

The icing used here is called 7-minute frosting - because you beat the ingredients over boiling water with an electric mixer for 7 minutes, (well, duh). Watch that cord - if you don't have a double boiler, use a bowl over a sauce pan like I did here, don't let the water level touch the bowl, or your icing will be grainy.

Does that look like some fluffy goodness or what? 7-minute frosting is not as hardy as buttercream or royal icing, so it is best used when the cake will all be eaten that same day and when the weather is not too hot outside.

Look at that big, puffy, snowball of lovliness! Want a bite?