Cigar Box Recipes: Coconut Cake

Once a year when I was growing up, Momer would fly from Alabama to visit us in California. As soon as she unpacked, we'd run to the closet and smell her clothes--it sounds so weird now, but we loved her smell. Sweet and baby-powderish.


And at some point during the visit, she'd make us her famous coconut cake. She'd go into the garage with a coconut and a hammer, pour the juice out for us to drink, and grate the meat for her recipe. She always insisted we wait three days to eat the cake, but I must admit that I made this recipe in the morning and we inhaled it that night.


Coconut Cream Cake
1 pkg. butter-flavored cake mix
2 cups sugar
1 8-oz. carton sour cream
12 oz. grated coconut
1 1/2 cups whipped cream
Bake cake in 4 layers. Cool. Combine sugar, sour cream and coconut. Chill. Reserve 1 cup for frosting. Spread remainder between layers. Combine reserved sour cream mixture and whipped cream; blend until smooth. Spread on top and sides of cake. Seal cake in air-tight container, and refrigerate for 3 days before serving. It's worth waiting for.


Janet's Notes: I baked this in 3 layers because I didn't have a fourth cake pan. The filling was a little grainy (maybe because we didn't wait 3 days to eat it) and I doubt I'll be more patient next time, so I might use powdered sugar instead of granulated. I also used packaged coconut instead of fresh.

The shirtless wonder bakes a cake.