The Coconut Cake

This cake is for my co-worker Linda's birthday on Wednesday. We are having a potluck early-dismissal lunch and I said I would bring a birthday cake. (I guess this is what teachers did all those days we had early dismissal in school)

I had never made a coconut cake before and the directions kind of lost me when they said to poke holes in each layer with the top of a wooden spoon (see Paula Dean's cake recipe here), but my mother told me it would be OK and she's been making cakes a lot longer than I have, so I went with it. It was OK. I used a straight buttercream frosting instead of Paula's and pressed toasted coconut into it. I used the remaining coconut milk as liquid in the frosting, but it didn't take on the flavor. Next time I might add coconut extract, but this time I was feeling cheap in the supermarket.

Anyway, it looks great and what we scraped off the bottom of the pans tastes incredible. This is the second time in two weeks I've made a cake from scratch, no Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines, I'm feeling pretty good about myself.

I hope Linda likes it!