I’ve been on a coconut kick again lately, in case you didn’t see that huge hunk o’ cake down there. Today I got a hankering to compile all the Willow Bird Baking coconut recipes and then realized I wanted to do the same for chocolate recipes. And for recipes with both coconut and chocolate. So why not compile all the goodness together in one big roundup post? If you love coconut or chocolate or both together, this post is dedicated to you! And this is the perfect time to unveil a new little Willow Bird feature: you can now hover over any photo to pin that photo to Pinterest. Happy baking — and pinning!
I am very new to indoor cat ownership. Buckle has been with me for a little over a month now, and I’m only just now starting to “get” cats. As much as you can ever “get” cats, I should say. He’s quite the enigma.
Here are some things I’ve realized. And that you should have warned me about, you smug cat owners.
1. Cats are fluffy.
Yes, they are cute-fluffy, but they are also fur-tumbleweeds-on-all-surfaces, must-vacuum-all-the-time, why-is-there-cat-hair-in-my-mouth fluffy. I don’t think I’ve ever used up an entire lint roller in my life, but since Buckle got here, I’ve gone through two. I have to dust, vacuum, and wash all throws/rugs every weekend without fail or the creep of the cat dander will eventually cover me like an evil, carnivorous fur coat.
He also hates his furminator and tries to attack it. Good thing he loves the prickly hairbrush.
2. Cats are busybodies.
If you have cabinets, they need to know what’s in those cabinets. They don’t want a cursory glance. They want to get in those cabinets and roll around until they have fully explored the texture of the cabinet contents.
If you have some dinner, they need to smell that dinner. And paw at that dinner. And if at all possible (for instance, if you have gone to retrieve a forgotten napkin or fork), taste that dinner.
If they hear a noise, see you pick something up, detect a motion in their peripheral vision, or just have a weird hunch, immediate and thorough investigation is essential.
What’s this? Cake? What’s cake? I’m going to need to investigate that…
3. Cats are terrifying.
Every now and then Buckle will go bat-you-know-what-crazy for no apparent reason, dive through the house, tackle an utterly-terrified Byrd, jump on three or four separate pieces of furniture, knock something over, and then hide under the buffet.
During this time, I close my eyes tightly and hope nothing expensive is in his path.
4. Cats sleep a lot. In weird places.
I emailed my friend Jamie shortly after Buckle came home just to make sure he wasn’t sick: “Are cats supposed to sleep, like, 20 hours a day?” Apparently, yes.
Buckle’s favorite spot to sleep is on my bright orange tray, using The Wednesday Chef’s amazing book, My Berlin Kitchen, as a pillow. He’s got good taste in literature, I’ll admit, but there are fluffy pillows and blankets all over the room. And he chooses to sleep squished into a too-small tray with the corner of a book digging into his side. I don’t get it.
5. Cats are worth it.
Worth the fur, worth the terror, worth the furniture cleaning (We had an incident. Don’t get me started.) I’m already forgetting what it was like without Buckle here at home with us. As I punctuated that last sentence, he just stretched out and curled into an even more absurd position in his little book tray, as if to underscore my point. He’s a big sweet baby, and I’m glad he’s mine.
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Buckle’s already given his furry “thumbs up” to this cake — he tried his best to reach it during the photo shoot. I love all coconut cakes, and have tried this one and this one. Both were amazing in their own ways, but I knew it was time to Frankenstein together the ultimate coconut cake. And this is it.
This cake combines the perfect white cake from The Way the Cookie Crumbles‘s careful experiments, an insane coconut pastry cream filling from Zoë Bakes, a thick coconut syrup drizzled onto each layer to keep it moist, and a buttery coconut French meringue buttercream to top it all off. It’s a time consuming recipe, but if you’re as crazy about coconut as I am, it’s worth it.
My sweet friend Mara and I were both gunning to make this ultimate treat, so we teamed up to present it to you two different ways! Go see her version of this masterpiece at What’s For Dinner? I love her version so much — not only is it an awesome coconut cake, but it tells a story!
This is it. The ultimate coconut cake. Perfect white cake is drizzled with coconut syrup, filled with rich coconut pastry cream, and slathered with coconut French meringue buttercream. If you love coconut, this one’s for you.
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1½ sticks), softened but still cool
Coconut Pastry Cream Ingredients:
1 can (14 fluid ounces) unsweetened coconut milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
pinch kosher salt
3 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons corn starch
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 cup sweetened coconut flakes
1/2 cup whipping cream
Coconut Syrup Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup coconut water
Coconut French Buttercream Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites , at room temperature
24 tablespoons (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon coconut extract
3 cups sweetened coconut flakes
Instructions
NOTE ON TIMING: This cake has many steps, but none of them are particularly hard. For convenience, I’d split it up over 2-3 days. On the first day, bake the cake layers and let them cool before wrapping and freezing them. Make the coconut syrup and leave it covered in the fridge. On the second day, make the coconut pastry cream and frosting. Assemble the cake. Serve it then or on the third day.
Make the cake: Set oven rack in middle position. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or butter/flour two 9-inch cake pans very well. Add a parchment paper circle in the bottom of each and grease that too. You don’t want your layers to stick! Pour milk, coconut milk, egg whites, and extracts into a small bowl and whisk gently until blended.
In a large bowl, whisk together cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and continue beating until mixture resembles moist crumbs, with no powdery streaks left.
Add all but about 1/2 cup of milk mixture to crumbs and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add the remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat 30 seconds more. Scrape down the sides of bowl before beating just a little longer.
Divide batter evenly between two prepared cake pans and smooth the tops with a spatula before dropping it from about 3 inches high to eliminate any bubbles in the batter. Arrange pans on middle rack. Bake until a thin skewer or toothpick inserted in the center comes out with just a few moist crumbs, 23 to 25 minutes. If you wait until the toothpick comes out totally clean, your cake might’ve gone too long and could be dry; be careful not to overbake! Check early and often.
Let the cakes rest in pans for a few minutes before running a knife around the edges of the pan and inverting the cakes onto wire racks. Invert them again so they’ll be right-side up and let them cool completeley, about 1 1/2 hours, before wrapping in wax paper and plastic wrap to freeze until pretty firm, about 30 minutes.
Make the coconut pastry cream: Heat the coconut milk, sugar, salt and vanilla bean or extract in a medium saucepan over medium heat. In a bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and corn starch. Once the cream is hot, remove the vanilla bean (if used), scraping out any remaining seeds and returning them to the cream. Add 1/2 cup of the hot cream slowly to the yolks, whisking as you add, to temper the eggs so they won’t cook into an omelette in the middle of your pastry cream. That would be a bummer. Then pour the yolk mixture into the pot of hot cream and whisk. Continue to whisk with heat on medium-high for 3 more minutes. The mixture will turn thick and bubble. You need to continue to whisk for the full 3 minutes or the pastry cream will separate once it is cool. After the 3 minutes, whisk in the butter. Add the coconut flakes. Pour into a shallow dish to cool.
Cover with plastic wrap pressed right against the pastry cream. This will prevent a thick skin from forming on the surface. Refrigerate for at least an hour or freeze for 30 minutes. Once it is cold, stir the pastry cream to loosen. Whip the 1/2 cup cream to medium peaks. Stir in 1/3 to the pastry cream to lighten. Fold in the remaining cream until the pastry cream is nice and light. Avoid eating entire bowl of pastry cream with a spoon.
To make coconut syrup: Combine the sugar, water, and coconut water in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer until the sugar has dissolved, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove the pan from the heat and allow the syrup to cool completely, about 20 minutes.
Make Coconut French buttercream icing: Combine sugar and 1/2 cup water in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Boil without stirring until syrup reaches 240° on a digital thermometer, about 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a stand mixer with whisk attachment, beat egg whites on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. With mixer on medium speed, gradually pour in hot syrup in a thin stream; avoid pouring syrup on whisk. Increase speed to medium-high and beat until stiff peaks form and mixture is cool, about 8 minutes. Reduce speed to medium and add butter 1 tablespoon at a time, beating after each addition. (If at any time buttercream appears curdled, beat on high until smooth, then reduce speed to medium and continue beating in butter.) Once all butter is added, beat on high speed until buttercream is smooth and fluffy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla and coconut extract.
Assemble the cake: Carefully slice each cake layer in half with a long serrated knife. Drizzle a couple tablespoons of coconut syrup over the “inner” side (the one that seems most porous) of each layer. Spread 1/3 of the coconut pastry cream filling onto the first cake layer. Spread it almost to the edge, but pipe a thick bead of buttercream around the very outside edge of each layer to ensure no spillage. Sprinkle with flaked coconut. Repeat with the other layers. Frost the cake with a very thin crumb coat and set it in the freezer to set for about 15 minutes. Bring it out and continue frosting the rest of the cake generously. Carefully push handfuls of fluffy coconut all over the sides of the cake and on top. Keep the cake in the refrigerator, but let sit out for about 30 minutes before slicing and serving so the frosting will be soft.
This Coconut Almond Pull-Apart Bread is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten and I really want to spend a few paragraphs gushing about it.
But there’s no time to gush about it. BECAUSE CAT.
If you’re on Willow Bird Baking’s Facebook page (and if you’re not, you’re missing a lot of fun over there), you already know what I’m alluding to. But on the off chance you haven’t heard me crying from the rooftops of the interwebz: I GOT A CAT. CAT CAT CAT!
…introducing Huckle Buckle Beanstalk Ruble, also known as Buckle, also known as my new wittle smooshy-wooshy face.
He’s a buff colored, 11-pound, 1.5-year-old chunk of kitty love from the Charlotte Humane Society, and he’s made himself right at home in my apartment and in my heart.
Getting a cat has been on my mind for months, and I’ve scoured Petfinder and Humane Society websites for the perfect one. To be honest, though, I think all of my searching was in vain — because God dropped Buckle right into my lap.
Wonder how these photo shoots will go with kitty around? Hm.
My 6th graders and I take an annual field trip to the Humane Society to drop off the funds they raise by baking and selling dog treats. This year, given my months-long search, I knew the kitty room would hold a special attraction for me. I ended up cuddling a sweet gray kitten for much of the time there, but I knew he was someone else’s. In the first place, kittens get adopted very easily, so I felt compelled to adopt an adult cat. In the second place, the adult cats all had their adoption fees waived thanks to a donor’s generous gift to the Humane Society. Cost was definitely an obstacle for me since I have a steep a pet deposit at my apartment, so this seemed especially fortuitous.
I looked around a bit and saw a fat buff cat and an older orange cat I liked, but I wasn’t sure. I headed back on Saturday with Mike, though, and the buff cat not only purred just like one of Mike’s old cats, Motorboat, but he also seemed loving and laid back — perfect for introducing to Byrd! Before I knew what I was doing, I had him in a travel crate sitting in the adoption counselor’s office. I actually asked Mike, “What’s happening?! Are we doing this?!” Despite my months of research, it didn’t seem real.
There were so many doubts, but moment by moment since we walked in my apartment door together, Buckle has assuaged every one. He is just as sweet as a cupcake: a loving cuddlebug who seems to enjoy Byrd (and matches her coloring exactly, oddly enough!), catnip, and good scratching surfaces. I think the moment I felt the most sure about him was when I was lying in the floor earlier today watching him bat around a ball with Byrd. They were like two little buff colored peas in a pod.
Now that I’ve introduced you to my newest baby, maybe I can finally introduce you to this bread. I can’t really say enough about it: it’s got the most gorgeous, buttery, delicate flavor and texture. The glaze is rich and creamy and adds the perfect touch of decadence to the finished loaf. I think if I could pick one thing to eat for the rest of my life, this would be it. Did I mention it was really, really delicious?
Have you ever rescued a pet?
P.S. Please feel free to weigh in with any and all kitty advice, websites, etc.!
If you love pull-apart bread, you’re gonna fliiiip. This yeast dough recipe is (I firmly believe) the best tasting yeast bread recipe in existence. My family uses it for everything. And this filling (buttery coconut almond goodness) is the best filling in existence. Combine them in a tender loaf that ends up with the texture of cinnamon-roll-insides and douse them in a heavy coconut cream glaze and, well. Let’s just say you’ll need to keep coming back to this recipe!
Dough Ingredients:
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (100-110 degrees F)
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 cups milk minus 2 tablespoons, room temperature
2/3 cup cold shortening
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
5 cups flour
2 tablespoons butter, melted, for after baking
Filling Ingredients:
2 sticks butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
7 ounces almond paste, grated or crumbled small
2 cups coconut
3/4 cup sugar
Glaze Ingredients:
1 cup powdered sugar
3/8 cup (6 tablespoons) heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon coconut extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
Directions: Note on proofing: This yeast dough proofs overnight, gets shaped, and then the finished loaves proof for 2-3 more hours. Plan ahead for this amount of time.
Note on yield: I don’t recommend halving yeast recipes; instead, if you don’t want 2.5 or 3 loaves at once, consider freezing a loaf for later. The variation in the yield is the result of my error — I packed this recipe into 2 loaf pans and the loaves were so squished that they were hard to get baked completely. So in this recipe, I tell you not to oversquish — once your loaf pans are pleasantly stuffed, put the overflow dough into another loaf pan (mini or regular, however much extra you have) to bake. This way the loaves will bake correctly.
Note on freezing: To freeze an unbaked loaf, just wrap it well before the second rise and freeze it. Once frozen, pop it out of the pan all together and store in the freezer, wrapped in plastic wrap and in a zip top bag or wrapped in foil. When you want to bake it, stick it back in a greased pan, thaw it in the fridge overnight, proof for the instructed amount of time, and bake like usual.
Make the dough: Mix the warm water and yeast in a medium bowl and let the yeast foam for about 10 minutes. Put 2 tablespoons white vinegar in a measuring cup and then add milk up to the 2 cup line. Set this aside. In a separate large bowl (or the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook), whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and baking powder and cut the shortening into the mixture with two knives or a pastry cutter until the shortening looks like small peas. Stir yeast mixture and milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well, kneading just a few turns. Transfer the dough to a bowl lightly sprayed with cooking spray, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and proof overnight in the fridge.
Shape and bake pull-apart bread: Grease three 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pans and set aside. Melt the 2 sticks of butter in a microwave safe bowl and stir in coconut extract. In another bowl, mix together the grated almond paste, coconut, and sugar. Set these aside.
Gently cut the dough in thirds to work with. Flour a large work surface and turn your dough out onto it. Roll it out to a 20 inch long and 12 inch wide rectangle, lifting corners periodically to make sure it’s not sticking and using more flour as needed. If it seems to be snapping back, cover it with a damp towel and let it rest for 5 minutes before continuing.
Spread about a third of the melted butter over the rectangle of dough. Then sprinkle about a third of the coconut/almond paste/sugar mixture over the top, patting it down to ensure it mostly sticks. Don’t skimp on the edges.
With the long edge of the rectangle toward you, cut it into 6 strips (do this by cutting the rectangle in half, then cutting each half into equal thirds. I’d use a pizza cutter or bench scraper). Stack these strips on top of one another and cut the resulting stack into 6 even portions (again, cut it in half, and then cut the halves into equal thirds). Place these portions one at a time into your greased loaf pan, pressing them up against each other to fit them all in (if it seems like you’re having to squish your layers too much to fit them all, don’t be afraid to leave a little out — it feels like a waste, but you don’t want an underdone loaf because you overpacked. Maybe you could make a baby loaf with the extra.) Repeat this rolling, filling, and cutting process with the other two portions of dough. Cover the loaf pans with clean, damp cloths and place them in a warm place for 2-3 hours to almost double in size.
After dough rises, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (or 325 if you have a glass loaf dish instead of a metal pan). Place the loaves in the center of the oven and bake for 35-45 minutes until dark golden brown on top (if you take them out at light golden brown, they’re liable to be raw in the middle, so let them get good and dark. If they doesn’t feel done in the middle when you poke them but they’re getting too dark, cover them with foil). Cool for 20-30 minutes on a cooling rack in the loaf pans while you make the glaze.
Make the Coconut Cream Glaze: Whisk together cream, powdered sugar, and extracts until smooth. Drizzle on warm loaves, reserving extra to serve on the side. Serve warm slices of loaf with berries of your choice.
It’s that time again: Valentine’s Day. You either love it or you hate it, but you have to admit . . . at least it’s an excuse to eat dessert? Here are a few that will definitely score you brownie points with your sweetheart (or your own solitary tummy as you sit on the couch and watch reruns of 30 Rock, thank you very much.)
By the way, I’ve included a difficulty rating after each recipe so you can pick one perfect for your skill level and schedule. And how much you love your partner. JUST KIDDING, just kidding.
Last year I tried to wax a little cheerful about 2011, but I was really ready to move on. I had no idea that 2012 would bring some of the happiest times and some of the hardest times of my life to date. To say I’m ready to move on from this year is an understatement, and yet I know there are friends and even strangers who have had a much harder year than I’ve had. I also know that even my hardest times are part of a story God is weaving around me, and I thank Him for His faithfulness and sovereignty over everything that has happened this year. Never once did I ever walk alone.
How can we make 2013 the best year of our lives so far? I wonder if I can persuade you, while making your New Year’s resolutions, to make living with empathy a goal. I’m going to try it: in everything I do and every way I interact with others, I’m going to try and make a sincere effort to see their point of view, to imagine myself in their shoes.
My other resolutions? Focusing on scripture each day, continuing my newfound enjoyment of exercise. But I think living with empathy is what actually has the potential to change me.
To conclude a wonderful year on Willow Bird Baking — a year in which I have so appreciated befriending you and all of our lovely discussions — here are the top 12 recipes from ’12.
