Hey You, Why Are You Such A Procrastinator?

Okay.  My birthday was 26 days ago. 

So, 26 days ago, I was going to make a blog entry. 

Let's call this entry "Fashionably Late". 
Or "Just Plain Late". 
Or "Hey You, Why Are You Such A Procrastinator?" 

Anyway, for my 24th I made this super delicious, super awesome triple layer lemon coconut cake, and it needs to be shared with the world. 

The original recipe came from here

I mean seriously, for a lover of all things lemon flavored, it's a dream come true.  When I saw the picture I knew I had to try it out; and oh my gosh did it taste amazing! 
Even though mine looked more like it came out of an easy bake oven and less like the beautiful stacked perfection of the original baker, it was worth the four hours it took to bake it.  Yes, I said four hours.

If I'm being honest though, I didn't really mind.  I've found over the last year and a half or so that I quite like my kitchen. 

There's something to be said about creating things.   Art, words, carpentry, sculpting, cooking.  Knowing what you want, and watching it take shape and life in your hands.  Something that looks how you want, feels how you want, tastes how you want.  It's both invigorating and calming. 

I could write an entire entry on my compulsion to create things.

But...cake. 

Mouth watering, fantastic cake. 

If you haven't glanced at the original recipe yet, you can see from this picture that most of the ingredients you'll probably have in your pantry already.  I only had to buy the lemons and coconut. 

Okay, so the 1st part of this entire process, I have named "incredibly frustrating and terribly smelly."

I decided to start with the coconuts first.  Get them opened, diced, and in the oven to get nice and toasty.  I even bought the ones that were pre-grooved for easy opening.  I was so confident and naive. 

Flash forward through 15 minutes of butcher knives, skewers, screwdrivers, and shouting abuse at food.  Yes, that is my garage floor.  And yes, they were finally beaten open with a hammer.  Deservedly so.  The jerks.   

Also, a quick lesson:  The lower coconut is what we would call "healthy".  The upper coconut is what we would call "Oh my mold what is that horrendous smell and why oh why does it look like that!?" 

Diced one (not rotten) coconut, sprinkled it with some sugar and cinnamon, and toasted it in the oven until it was dried out.  

 

Made up the cake batter according to the recipe.  I was worried there wouldn't be enough to bake with all the times I dipped my finger in to taste it.  It was that good. 

Here's where the 'triple layer' part comes in to play. 

Next up had me making egg whites, which despite my love of cooking/baking, I had never actually done.  It was the easiest thing in the world, and really fun to watch!

However, as tasty as lemon filling is to eat, it's not the easiest thing to make.  At least not for me.  It took me 3 times longer to get it to thicken than the recipe said it would.  And it was sticky.  And it was also worth it. 

Then came the delicious cream cheese frosting.

Then came smearing the delicious cream cheese frosting on one of the cakes like a crazy person and breaking it.

Then came using the lemon filling like glue to fix my poor, ugly, delicious cake. 

Then came some lovely toasted coconut that made everything seem better. 

Remember that scene in Sleeping Beauty, when the fairies were making a birthday cake and had to use a broom to prop it up?  That's all I could think about. 

 After stacking, smearing, smoothing, sprinkling, laughing, and four hours...this mammoth was done.   It was the middle of the night on my birthday, my kitchen was a mess, and I had lemon in my hair....but I was happy.  It really was a lot of fun.
 

 After taking it to my parents the next night, I found out that the smallest piece will fill you up so fast (the missing cake in the picture was from two people).  I had no desire to be tempted with the leftovers at my house, so I didn't bring it home with me, but I'm sure they ate on it for days. 
It was huge.  It was awesome.  It was lemon.  It was huge.  It was coconut.  It was huge. 
Did I say how huge it was?  It was. 

It was also worth it.  Don't take my word, scroll up, find the recipe, and get to it. 


....just make sure you clear your schedule for 4 hours. 

  *Kailey