The other day I needed a quick and easy dessert and I decided to make Dorie Greenspan's "Coconut Tea Cake." The recipe's introductory text notes that Dorie has a friend who likes "dry" cakes like this one -- with "dry" not meaning overbaked or stale, but meaning a pound cake or plain coffee cake "without frosting or fuss."
Making the batter for this cake is straightforward. You beat room temperature eggs and sugar with a whisk attachment until pale and thick, add vanilla and dark rum, and then incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt). Finally, you add coconut (I used unsweetened coconut that was not toasted, but Dorie says your coconut can be sweetened or not, toasted or not) and a mixture of hot coconut milk and melted butter. You pour the batter into a buttered Bundt pan and bake.
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The recipe instructs you to cool the cake for 10 minutes before unmolding it. I waited ten minutes, turned over the pan, and nothing happened. Even though I had buttered my pan well (I didn't flour it, but the recipe didn't instruct me to), my cake was completely stuck. After futzing with it for a few minutes -- banging the pan and running a plastic spatula between the edge of the cake and the pan -- I was able to get the cake out in one piece, but a layer of the dark brown crust stayed behind in the pan and the top of the cake was bumpy and unevenly colored as a result.
Despite its rather homely and plain appearance, this cake was surprisingly good. The coconut flavor was more subtle than I had expected, with the vanilla flavor being more prominent on the front end of each bite and the coconut coming through in the finish. I liked the texture of the shredded coconut in the cake, but it was invisible to the eye; next time I would consider toasting the coconut to enhance both the flavor and color. The cake was not as rich or buttery as a pound cake, but it was nicely moist. It was quite good alone, but I imagine that it would be particularly delicious topped with fruit and whipped cream.
While I definitely would not call the freshly baked cake "dry" in the pejorative sense, I could see how it would dry out over time. Dorie notes that stale cake makes a great "dunker" for coffee or tea, or it can be cut into fingers, toasted, and dipped "biscotti-style" in dessert wine. I suppose it doesn't matter whether this cake is "dry" in the sense of being plain, or "dry" in the sense of being stale -- it's all good!
Recipe: "Coconut Tea Cake" from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.
Making the batter for this cake is straightforward. You beat room temperature eggs and sugar with a whisk attachment until pale and thick, add vanilla and dark rum, and then incorporate the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt). Finally, you add coconut (I used unsweetened coconut that was not toasted, but Dorie says your coconut can be sweetened or not, toasted or not) and a mixture of hot coconut milk and melted butter. You pour the batter into a buttered Bundt pan and bake.
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Despite its rather homely and plain appearance, this cake was surprisingly good. The coconut flavor was more subtle than I had expected, with the vanilla flavor being more prominent on the front end of each bite and the coconut coming through in the finish. I liked the texture of the shredded coconut in the cake, but it was invisible to the eye; next time I would consider toasting the coconut to enhance both the flavor and color. The cake was not as rich or buttery as a pound cake, but it was nicely moist. It was quite good alone, but I imagine that it would be particularly delicious topped with fruit and whipped cream.
While I definitely would not call the freshly baked cake "dry" in the pejorative sense, I could see how it would dry out over time. Dorie notes that stale cake makes a great "dunker" for coffee or tea, or it can be cut into fingers, toasted, and dipped "biscotti-style" in dessert wine. I suppose it doesn't matter whether this cake is "dry" in the sense of being plain, or "dry" in the sense of being stale -- it's all good!
Recipe: "Coconut Tea Cake" from Baking: From My Home to Yours, by Dorie Greenspan.
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