Delicious Disaster

I've been holding on to a recipe for a while - dying to make it.  Just lacking the proper opportunity.  Today was the day.  Because.... well, it's Thursday.  That's why.


The recipe is from the grandmother of an old friend of mine.  I've never had it, but she blogs and when I read about this cake, something about it just spoke to me.  It's a coconut cake.  Mmmmm.  One of my favorites.  But not just any coconut cake.  A wet coconut cake.  Didn't quite know what that meant, but never mind - it sounded excellent and I'm a sucker for old family recipes!


Now, you know, I dabble in the kitchen.  So I generally review a recipe before just diving in.  Especially when baking because those do cause me a bit more stress with all the exactness and science and stuff.


I read this recipe.  Part of it was not quite clicking for me.  You see the icing is made with beaten egg whites (ok, I'm with ya) and a syrup (uhhhh).  The icing is supposed to "soak" into the cake.  Wha???  I was struggling with this concept.  But it's a grandma recipe and there are just some techniques that have been lost between generations.  So I forged ahead.


As I said, some cooking techniques that have been lost with time.  My grandparents cooked, well, just differently.  Most of the time, our modern methods are welcome achievements of technology.  But once in a while don't you long for the one thing your grandma used to make that is next to impossible to recreate?  My Nana's fudge is like that for me.  I've tried.  And tried.  I just can't get it right.  And you know she made it without any of the fancy gadgets or candy thermometers we have available to us now.


I trust grandma recipes.  I cherish them.  But I'm on a whole different learning curve with them.  In hindsight, I think it's helpful to follow grandma recipes when you were actually able to sit on the counter, watch her do it and know first hand what the result should look and taste and feel like.  This was not my grandma.


I took lots of lovely pictures along the way.  Hoping to share this found treasure of a recipe with everyone.  It's quite easy and doesn't take long to get right to the heart of it... the icing.  I still couldn't figure out how on earth this was gonna work, but I moved on, hoping, waiting for that miraculous scientific baking magic!


I made the cake.

I made the syrup.

I readied the other ingredients.  (Confession - I made one minor edit to the recipe.  And although minor, I realize it could have been to blame for the disaster to come.  The recipe calls for almond flavoring in the icing.  I didn't have almond flavoring.  And to be honest, I'm not that big of a fan... but I do like coconut and lemon.  A lot.  So, instead of almond, I added a little fresh lemon juice and zest.  There - blame it all on the lemon.)

I whipped the egg whites stiff and slowly added the syrup.  I think this is truly where I went wrong.  I did not allow the syrup to cool entirely.  I'm terribly impatient.  It was a bit warm as I poured it in.  Fearing all the while that I had made a horrible mistake.

The result was really runny.  Really.  In an egg white fluffy/foamy kind of way.  I spooned it over the cake.  Yes, spooned.  It was that runny.  Thankfully I had the foresight to put parchment paper under the edges.  

And then it happened.  I had been warned it could.  While I was busy fussing over foamy, syrupy icing and the camera, the rest of the icing separated.  There was a thin layer of foam lying quietly over sticky sweet syrup.  


OMG - put down the camera and pay attention!  


I quickly threw it back under the whisk and whipped it back up again, hoping for the best.  It seemed to kind of come back together but was even runnier than before.  If that's possible.  


Committed to see this through, I added coconut flakes to the first layer, then put the second layer of cake on top and repeated with the now SUPER runny icing.  What a mess.  The icing syrup ran all over the cake, down the sides.  I tried adding the coconut flakes to help make it stay put but it just made matters worse.

But in all that sticky mess, I had the good fortune to taste some of that syr-icing.  Oh my.  It was good!  Hmmm.  This might not be so bad after all.


It was recommended that I stick in in the refrigerator to "set."  So I did.  


We went out for dinner tonight.  No need for any more test kitchen disasters.  When we came home, I pulled out the cake, slowly removed the parchment paper and.... 


yeah, it still looks bad.  Wha'd you expect?

Then we at it.  (Insert guttural sounds of delight).  It was good.  Really GOOD!  Even Sydney loved it.  


If a disastrous looking cake is wrong, I don't wanna be right!

 Mmmmm.  Now, although the result turned out pretty darn good, I know I can do better.  We will be happy to try and try and try this one again!


I will not yet share the recipe here for you.  I dare not disparage the good name of the family - and grandmother - I stole this from.  I need to work it out on my own and figure out grandma's methods before I teach you.


It will be worth the wait!