coconut Archives | The Good Hearted Woman

Southern-style Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream {from Scratch}

This sweet southern scratch-made Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream Frosting is moist, tender, melt-in-your-mouth perfection.

Last summer, I caught an unexpected bug: the Cake Baking Bug! Specifically, a yen to bake up rich, decadent, double- and triple-layer Southern-style cakes. Traditional, old-fashioned, fancy-pants cakes with layers and frosting and everything. No boxes, no preservatives, no shortcuts. Just Cakes. From Scratch.

I have no idea where this cake-baking urge came from. To begin with, I’m not particularly a cake person: sure, I’ll take a piece if it’s offered, but cake is way down on my list of preferred indulgences. Also, I’m about as Southern as Santa Claus. But mostly, I’ve always considered myself to be more of a Cook than a Baker.

From my perspective, bakers are, of necessity, meticulous, methodical recipe-followers who measure everything with the slice of a knife. Bakers are good at following rules. Me: not so much. I tend to measure with my hands and throw in extra ingredients and leave out others, and bend a recipe until it comes out the other side as something altogether different than it was when it started. I mean, I can follow recipe if I really want to, but I rarely want to.

Then Mr B and I traveled to Tennessee this August (for the second time in a year) and I returned to Oregon all full of cake dreams and determined to make triple-layer strawberry cake from scratch before fall arrived.

Which I did.

And it was Fabulous.

After working through the recipe for that first cake, I was hooked. Because while I’m may not be big on measuring and rule-following, I relish a good challenge – and developing a cake recipe that truly sings (and can be successfully replicated by others) is an honest challenge. Now I have a whole list of cakes to learn, tinker with, and roll out on the blog over the next few years!

Happy Birthday, Elvis!

After successfully perfecting my strawberry cake, I decided that a coconut cake needed to be next on the docket. Why? Because coconut is one of my all-time favorite flavors. Plus, it’s white and fluffy like snow, and eating a cake in winter that looks like snow is kind of like seasonal eating, right? And also, coconut cake was Elvis’ favorite, and Elvis’ birthday is today [January 8th], and I can’t think of a better reason than that to make it a January tradition.

(If you’re not an Elvis fan, feel free to celebrate David Bowie’s birthday today instead.)

[ATTENTION : LIVING MUSIC LEGENDS – If you are currently a living Legend of Rock & Roll and/or a standing member of the Grand Ole Opry and would like to have a delicious scratch cake dedicated to you on this blog, please Tweet me up! Seriously. {Tom Scholz, I’ll be waiting… Also, Peter Frampton: not. even. kidding.} 😉 ]

I took what I learned about the cake batter science from my Strawberry Cake and ended up with this Amazing Coconut Cake. As in, delicate, tender, melt-in-your-mouth Amazing. As in, loaded with coconut flavor and light as a cloud Amazing. If you are a coconut lover, you are going to Love it!

Cake Batter Science

I think the real key to this coconut cake is how and when you introduce the meringue to the rest of the cake batter. Most recipes similar to this one have you make the meringue, take it to medium or stiff peaks, and set it aside while you make the rest of the cake batter. However, I’ve learned that you get a discernibly lighter cake if you mix up the batter before you whip up the meringue.

Meringue is basically a mixture of proteins and water. Air whisked into the egg white becomes trapped and surrounded by a network of proteins, and adding sugar stabilizes this protein network. Making the meringue after the batter allows you to gently fold it in immediately after whipping it up. This way, the meringue’s protein network doesn’t have time to start breaking down or setting up, and more teeny tiny meringue bubbles make their way into your cake, ultimately making it lighter.

5 from 11 votes

Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream Frosting

Course Dessert

Cuisine Southern

Author Renée ♥ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

Coconut Cake [3 Layers]

3 cups cake flour measure AFTER sifting
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 large egg whites room temperature
1 1/2 cups white sugar divided
3/4 cup unsalted butter softened
2 teaspoons coconut extract
1/4 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups full-fat, unsweetened coconut milk (NOT coconut cream!)

Coconut Buttercream Frosting

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter softened
2-3 teaspoons coconut extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 cups powdered sugar sifted
5-6 tablespoons coconut milk
2 cups flaked, sweetened coconut

Instructions

Cake Layers

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans. (Line pans with parchment paper for easy release and clean-up.
Measure sifted cake flour, baking powder, and salt; sift together three times. Set aside.
Combine sour cream and coconut milk in a small bowl and set aside.
Using an electric mixer with a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add coconut extract and mix to combine. Add flour mixture alternately with coconut milk and sour cream mixture, beating after each addition. Remove bowl from mixer and set aside.
[DO NOT begin this step until you have completed the previous step.] In a medium mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add 1/2 cup sugar gradually, beating until meringue will hold soft peaks.
[Do this step by hand. Do not use a mixer.] Carefully fold beaten egg whites into batter.
Pour batter evenly into the three prepared cake pans. Bake in preheated oven for 22-25 minutes, or until a toothpick or skewer comes out clean.
Allow cakes to cool in their pans over wire rack for 10 minutes. Carefully tap out onto wire rack to cool completely.

Coconut Frosting

Using an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high until light and fluffy. Add coconut and vanilla extracts and salt and mix to thoroughly combine.
Slowly add powdered sugar, mixing well after each addition.
Add coconut milk, one tablespoon at a time time, beating on medium-high until fully incorporated.

Cake Assembly

Spread the top of the bottom layer of cake with frosting. Add the middle layer and frost top. Add the top layer and frost sides and top of cake.
Sprinkle flaked coconut over top and sides of cake.

Recipe Notes

VERY IMPORTANT: Sift the flour, and THEN measure it! (If you're wondering why, try measuring it first, sifting it, and then measuring again.)

Bake your life easier: Line your cake pans with parchment paper!

Ingredient Notes

Flour: It’s important to use cake flour for this cake. Cake flour is a finely milled, delicate flour that results in a fine crumb and a good rise. The primary difference between cake flour and all-purpose flour [AP] is that cake flour has slightly less protein, which translates to less gluten in your cake, which means you will have a more tender cake. My personal cake flour preference is Bob’s Red Mill Super Fine Cake Flour. And I cannot stress this enough: when it comes to flour in baking, sift THEN measure.

If you really don’t want to buy cake flour just for this cake, try this easy Cake Flour Substitute: For each cup of cake flour, measure out 1 cup of flour, then remove 2 tablespoons from the cup. Add 2 tablespoons cornstarch, and sift together.

Thank you so much for being a faithful reader and supporter of The Good Hearted Woman. ❤ Be sure to Pin and Print this recipe!

I’m sharing this recipe on the Weekend Potluck Recipe Linkup. Check it out for more great recipes!

Vietnamese Banana Tapioca Pudding {Chè Chuối}

August 4 By Renée ♥ 13 Comments

We first experienced Vietnamese Banana Tapioca Pudding (or Chè Chuối; pronounced “chair chewy”) while dining at Duc’s Bistro in Honolulu. (You’ll be reading more about Duc and his bistro soon.) The delicate tapioca combined with banana and coconut cream created a delightfully sweet finish to a delicious and thoroughly enjoyable meal.

Mr. B and I paid careful attention to every dish we enjoyed in Hawaii, and when we returned home from our 10-day trip, we had a long list of recipes we wanted to recreate. Duc’s Banana Tapioca Pudding, topped with velvety coconut cream, was second on our list. (To answer your question – those Shrimp!)

After a little research (and some trial and error), I’ve come up with a good reproduction of the original, albeit with a few significant alterations:

The version we enjoyed in Honolulu included Hawaiian Apple Bananas, which are difficult to find here in the PNW. This recipe calls for regular bananas, but if you have access to Apple Bananas, by all means use them instead. (Baby bananas can also be used.)
I believe that Duc’s dessert had a thin layer of sweet rice between the tapioca and the coconut cream, but I chose to leave this out to simplify the process; however, it does add an additional, very pleasing textural element, so if you want to include the extra step, it might be worth the effort to you.
I’ve also added a little toasted coconut, because it adds a lovely sweet crunch, and …. oh, who am I trying to fool? I just love toasted coconut!

Vietnamese Banana Tapioca Pudding {Chè Chuối}

Inspired by a dessert served at Duc’s Bistro in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Vietnamese

Servings 8 servings

Author Renée B. ♥ The Good Hearted Woman

Ingredients

3 cups water
1/3 cup small tapioca pearls
4 medium bananas
1 – 13.5 oz can coconut milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-2 Tablespoons sugar

Garnish:

Finely chopped peanuts or cashews
Toasted coconut See below
Mint leaves

Instructions

Preparing Coconut Cream & Milk: (This sounds WAY more complicated than it really is.)

You will need 3 small bowls for this. In the end, you will have one bowl of coconut milk with a little coconut cream in it for adding directly to the pudding, one bowl of coconut cream with a little coconut milk in it for topping the finished tapioca mixture, and one empty bowl. Proceed as follows:
Open the can of coconut milk. (DO NOT shake the can before opening.)
Bowl #1 - Pour out the thin coconut milk/liquid from the can into this bowl.
Bowl #2 - Scrape the coconut cream from the can into this bowl.
Bowl #3 - Measure out 1/2 cup coconut milk from Bowl #1 and put it in this empty bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of the coconut cream from Bowl # 2 and set aside.
Add the remaining coconut milk from Bowl #1 to the remaining coconut cream in Bowl #2. Stir until smooth. Stir in 2 tablespoons of sugar and set aside. (Bowl #1 should now be empty.)

Prepare Pudding:

Cut bananas into ¾-1 inch pieces. Set aside.
In a medium pot, bring the water to a boil over medium heat. Add tapioca and reduce heat. Simmer for 12 to 14 minutes, until the tapioca nearly cooked, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Do not overcook: at this point, the tapioca should be thick, and individual pearls should be clear on the outside, and have a very small dot of white in the middle.
Add the salt and the coconut milk mixture from Bowl #3 and to the tapioca stir to combine.
Increase heat to medium. When the tapioca mixture begins to simmer, add the banana pieces and stir. Reduce heat and simmer for until the bananas are tender, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat.
Stir in vanilla. Add sugar one or two teaspoons at a time, tasting between additions, until it is sweetened to your tastes.

Toasted Coconut:

To toast coconut, place ½ cup sweetened flaked coconut in a small ungreased non-stick pan. Stirring constantly, cook over medium heat until coconut is lightly browned. Immediately remove from pan and cool on paper towels.

To Serve:

Distribute individual servings of banana-tapioca mixture into small bowls. Pour a thin layer of prepared coconut cream (from Bowl #2) over the top of each serving. Garnish with finely chopped nuts, toasted coconut, and mint leaves. Serve warm.

Note: If you want your garnishes to sit up on top of the coconut cream (instead of sinking into it), allow everything to cool a bit before you finish placing the toasted coconut, etc.

Don’t Miss the Breakfast Bus!

February 24 By Renée ♥ 6 Comments

7:54 a.m. – The typical time that our little Princess rolls her fanny out of bed to get ready for school.

8:03 a.m. – The time that the bus rolls up at the corner to carry the aforementioned Princess off to middle school. (It used to be 6:50 a.m.: things are better now.)

Seven minutes. She has an average of seven minutes – to get dressed, check her face, comb her hair, check her face again, maybe put on a little make-up, gather her school supplies that were supposed to be together the night before, grab her clarinet, hug her Mama and run out the door…

Breakfast? Most often, it is in her hand – because if she can’t hold it and eat it before she gets to the bus stop, it won’t get eaten. Because, heaven forbid should anyone know that she actually eats breakfast. (“It’s embarrassing.”) And somehow, no matter how early she gets up, it doesn’t change the amount of time she allots for eating breakfast. Thirteen-year old girls are weird.

Any Mama or Papa who has children who hop on a school bus has at least a few mornings when there isn’t time to sit down and eat anything. Some of us more than others, I’m sure, but we’ve all been there. So when you press something into their hands as they bolt out the door, you hope it’s something healthy and delicious (and NOT full of weird chemicals and preservatives) – something that will stick with them for the whole morning. Something that might even remind them that they are loved. A few weeks ago, I threw a bunch of ingredients in a bowl, waved my magic spatula and came up with a new favorite – a soft, healthy, hand-friendly breakfast bar full of oatmeal and yumminess.

I like to wrap these individually and freeze them in gallon-sized Ziploc bags, then take out however many I need the night before. They’re great cold, but for a warm breakfast on the go, ten seconds in the microwave makes them even better.

5 from 2 votes

Oatmeal-Banana Breakfast Bars

Prep Time 25 minutes

Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour 25 minutes

Servings 18 Bars

Ingredients

3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups unsweetened applesauce
1 large banana mashed
½ cup honey
5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
¼ cup ground almonds or ground flaxseed
1 Tbls ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger optional: I love ginger!
1 Tbls baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups almond milk
Optional additions:
¼ cup coconut
¼ cup golden raisins or craisins
¼ cup sunflower seeds
¼ cup anything else that sounds good ahem… chocolate chips, anyone?

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°.
Mix eggs, vanilla, applesauce, banana and honey together in a bowl.
Add in oats, ground almonds, ginger, baking powder, salt and and “optional additions” you choose, mix well with wet ingredients.
Pour in almond milk and stir combine. Set on counter for 15 minutes to allow the mixture to thicken slightly.
Line a large jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Spread mixture evenly over parchment paper.
Bake 1 hour, or until the top is slightly golden and it is “bouncy” to the touch. (Like a heavy quickbread.)
Cool and cut into 18 bars.
To store, wrap each bar individually in plastic wrap and then freeze them in gallon freezer bags.

Recipe Notes

Mrs. Obinger’s Coconut Cookies

February 5 By Renée ♥ 3 Comments

Mom and Dad both worked when I was little, so after school I often went to the home of one of our neighbors until one of them got home. Usually I went to our across-street-neighbor Mrs. Clement’s house. Mrs. Clement was tiny and very sweet, and her house was always perfectly clean. I was sometimes nervous to go to the bathroom there because everything was so perfect.

When Mrs. Clement wasn’t available, my mother would ask Mrs. Obinger, who lived kitty-corner from us. Mrs. Obinger was a little older than Mrs. Clement, and she had grown daughter named Georgianne who lived at home. Georgianne was paralyzed from the neck down. (If I remember the story right, she was injured when she was a teenager out on the Oregon Dunes.) Anyway, Georgianne was the first person I ever knew who was intelligent and capable and also had a severe physical disability. I learned a lot from both her and her mother.

Mrs Obinger made great after-school snacks, including a couple of my all-time favorites – Garlic Cheerios and Coconut Cookies. More often than not, when I arrived, she was already getting out the ingredients for one or the other. “Roll up your sleeves,” she’d say, and them we’d spend the next half hour in the kitchen together.

I loved making Coconut Cookies with Mrs Obinger because after she put the ingredients into the bowl, I could mix them up all by myself. I can still see myself, standing on a chair and buried up to my elbows, oatmeal and shortening and all sorts of yumminess squishing between my fingers. Is there anything better when you are six than squishing things? Especially if all that squishiness ends up being delicious cookies?

When I was in the fourth grade, I made a special trip over to Mrs. Obinger’s house and carefully wrote out the recipe on one of her special recipe cards as she dictated it to me, so that I could have it for always. I still have the card. I’ve made a few changes to the original, mostly to cut down the fat content, but they are still the same crispy-chewy coconut wonders I remember.

I encourage you to make a batch of these with your favorite child very soon. And if you don’t have a child of your own to make them with, invite the neighbor kid (and his mom) over to make some: you may even make a memory or two before you’re done – if you’re lucky.

Mrs. Obinger's Coconut Cookies

Making cookies with kids? Let them mix these cookies up by hand and have some fun!

Course Treats

Servings 50

Author Edna Obinger, updated by Renée ♥

Ingredients

3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup raw sugar or brown sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup grated coconut
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 cup coconut oil or very soft butter
1/2 cup vanilla almond milk or 1% milk
1-2 tsp vanilla

Instructions

Combine oats, sugar, flour, coconut, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.
Add soften butter, almond milk, and vanilla and mix. (I do this with my hands.)
Roll into 1" balls and flatten with a fork dipped in almond milk.
Bake 10-12 minutes at 375°.

Weight Watchers:

One cookie = 2 PointsPlus.

Roll into 1″ balls and flatten with a fork dipped in almond milk.

Pumpkin Fall Fantasy Smoothie

October 21 By Renée ♥ Leave a Comment

You can thank Fantasy Basketball for this post. Or Mr. B. Or both. Anyway, tonight while he was deep into the draft for his leventy-seventh fantasy sports team (which are not real, guys, in case you were confused) I got bored, so I started throwing things in the blender and when I was done, I had my first ever Coconut Peach Pumpkin Smoothie!! Super-awesome! So good, in fact, that Mr. B actually came back to reality long enough to tell me so.

(When I read that intro to Mr. B, he told me that it sounded like I may have a bit of an attitude, which wasn’t my intention at all. So just to clarify; I think Mr. B is adorable, and I think his little pretend sport teams are adorable too. I think I’ll keep him. ♥)

Tropical Fall Fantasy Smoothie

Combine the following in a blender:

1 cup vanilla ice cream
1 whole peach, fresh or canned
½ cup crushed ice
1/3 cup powdered sugar
¼ cup sweetened coconut
2 tbs. cooked pumpkin, fresh or canned
1 tsp. vanilla
½ teaspoon Pumpkin Pie Spice

I’m thinking this would make a fantastic ice cream too, but it was all gone before I had a chance to freeze any! Makes about 2 servings.