Coconut Cakes

Appears in

Published 2007

About

For many people, coconut cake is the ultimate Southern confection: fluffy and fancy, sweet and pretty, familiar, yet always capable of putting on a new outfit and making a big splash at the family reunion. My grandmother’s coconut cake was the first one I ever encountered and remains my heart’s delight. But even I have to admit that there is more than one way to make a fantastic coconut cake, and I adore baking the old-fashioned recipes and trying out the new ones.

Cracking open a fresh coconut for this kind of cake has its own ritual, bringing to mind a Christmas season kitchen scene, with Grandaddy sitting at the table helping out with the work of cracking, peeling, and grating a precious coconut for the season’s grand event, Grandmother’s coconut cake. My grandfather was seldom part of the kitchen team, but at Christmas he made oyster stew and helped my grandmother get the coconut all ready for her famous, glorious coconut cake.