Oh Merciful Heavens I Baked A Cake

Now y’all know that I love to cook.

But, by and large, I do not like to bake.

And I think the primary reason I struggle with baking is because, well, IT TAKES A SWEET FOREVER.

However, I saw Barb’s post last week about a coconut cake that she made, and it was so beautiful that I thought it would be a great gift for a couple of my friends. Since I would rather bake a cake than make cookies – because I’m sorry, in the time it takes to make 4 or 5 dozen cookies from scratch I could WRITE, EDIT AND REVISE A NOVELLA – I decided that I’d try my hand at baking Jamie’s Coconut Cake.

It took me a full week to work up the will to proceed.

On Monday night, I tackled the recipe for the first time. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t beyond my culinary capabilities – and aside from leaving out the vanilla and having a little trouble getting the layers out of the pans, it seemed to go okay. I thought the end result turned out pretty well, so I took it to a friend and decided I’d make another one for my friend Leigh’s birthday.

So yesterday, I baked Leigh’s cake. And I took pictures. Because if I’m going to bake, then I’m going to kill two birds with one stone and get a blog post out of it, too. Oh yes ma’am I am.

Here’s what I did.

Right after breakfast I took two sticks of butter out of the refrigerator so that they would be room temperature by the time I started the sixteen-hour cake-baking process. I did the same with four eggs.

Once I got ready to start the baking after lunch, I arranged all the ingredients in a lovely little display so that I could show y’all everything required to bake the cake. And then I remembered that I needed to butter and flour my cake pans, and I completely forgot to take a picture of the ingredients.

So I was off to a rip-roaring start.

I made the cake from scratch because that’s what my mama has always done. Plus, I figured that if I blogged about making the cake and made reference to a cake mix, Mama wouldn’t be able to show her face at Sunday School this week because OH, THE DISGRACE OF IT ALL.

The only other cake-baking transgression that would be more severe in her book is using margarine instead of REAL LIVE BUTTER. And if I succumb to that cardinal sin – well, the next thing you know I’ll be running around town wearing white shoes after Labor Day and saying “you guys” instead of “y’all.”

So first I buttered and floured the pans.

I’m pretty sure that the pan stuff alone took me about an hour or an hour and a half.

Then I whipped the REAL LIVE BUTTER until it was fluffy.

And added some sugar.

Adding the sugar created a dilemma because I am right-handed but wanted to take a picture of me actually adding the sugar into the batter because it seemed like that would be proper protocol for a baking post, but there is no way I could take a picture with my left hand, so I had to add the sugar with my left hand, and y’all JUST CAN’T IMAGINE HOW TRAUMATIC THAT WAS.

The directions said to let the sugar and butter combine for six or seven minutes, so while that was going on I decided to sift some flour.

(I wasn’t just sifting flour for kicks. I actually needed it for the recipe.)

Then I added eggs – one at a time – even though I don’t understand why you can’t just throw all four of them in the bowl at once. I also cracked the eggs one by one into a glass because that is what Paula Deen does. She always cautions her viewers to make sure their eggs “aren’t bad” – but how would one know, exactly? Would said “bad egg” wear a dark cape? Would it sport a sinister smile? Would it have horns?

It was about this point in the baking process that I was ready to quit. Because I’d been in the kitchen for 45 minutes and there still wasn’t a blessed thing to eat except for a bag of sweetened coconut flakes and some vanilla extract.

But I persevered. I added my flour and coconut milk (ALTERNATELY! you have to add them ALTERNATELY or apparently THE CAKE WILL EXPLODE).

(Disclosure: I am not actually adding the flour in the above photograph. I have the spoon propped up on the side of the bowl, because NO WAY was I going to try to use my left hand to add flour to a metal bowl with a spinning paddle inside while looking through the viewfinder of a camera. I AM NOT A GYMNAST, PEOPLE!)

(However, I totally added the coconut milk with my left hand. Because I am graceful in the tradition of an ambidextrous swan.)

Finally, I added some pure vanilla extract (seriously? if I used imitation vanilla flavoring? my mama would believe with all her heart that she had failed at motherhood) and poured the batter into the cake pans.

At which point I had to move onto phase two: making the filling.

Said filling consists of sour cream, sugar, coconut and a little milk.

Or, as I like to call it: a light snack.

Once the cake layers were done, I poked holes in them so that the aforementioned filling could seep down and create even more delicious goodness:

I mean, I think that looks like a finished cake, don’t you?

But oh, no. There was icing to be made. Icing that had to be cooked. In a double boiler. While using an electric mixer. For seven minutes.

I doubt I have to explain why I was only able to take one (out of focus) photograph during the icing-making process.

And really, nothing screams “SUMMER FUN” like boiling water, hot steam, an electrical cord and a large digital camera.

Fortunately, I escaped the icing-cooking phase of the process with no electrical shocks or severe burns, so I’d say that’s a baking victory, wouldn’t y’all?

And then, the final phase:

(obligatory puns about “icing on the cake” / “taking the cake” go here)

(obligatory groans at the bad puns go here)

Coconut goes here:

ISN’T IT PURTY, Y’ALL?

And seriously – seeing the finished product made the whole baking extravaganza worthwhile.

Plus, it was fun to surprise a sweet friend on her birthday.

In fact, Leigh loved the cake so much that it made me want to bake more often.

And do y’all know what? I felt that way for a whole five minutes.

I surely did.