Coconut DREAM Cake! Perfect for Easter dessert!

As soon as I saw this Coconut Dream Cake (perfect for Easter dessert) on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens, I knew I HAD to make it!

I saw it for the first time when my mother gave me her April/2010 issue of Good Housekeeping and I immediately exclaimed, “I’m going to make that! It’s BEAUTIFUL!”  A fresh, snowy-looking, yet spring-like triple layer coconut cake. YES, 3 LAYERS! This is what I would make and BRING for dessert to my Greek in-laws Easter day lamb roast.

The recipe said it would take 1.5 hours preparation time. I seriously considered whether or not I wanted to invest THAT much time into it. Of course, I decided to go for it!

I rounded up all the necessary pans and ingredients and began to make this fresh coconut cake completely from scratch on Saturday afternoon — the day before Easter.

The estimated 1.5 hours was WAY too short. Seriously.  It took me no less than 6 hours to make this cake and took up a good deal of my Easter morning.  At times the thought of just ending it all crossed my mind, but so did the picture of that beautiful snowy spring coconut cake, and so I kept going.

I beat and beat and beat the whipped cream (3 times longer than specified). My thumbs tingled as I peeled paper thin skin off of fresh coconut (a grueling task). I avoided, by the grace of God or luck or some angel looking over me, what would have been a self-inflicted abdominal stabbing as the knife I was trying to pry the coconut out of its shell with slipped.  I must thank my husband for giving me encouragement and help in prying that coconut out of its shell when I was about to drive to Kroger and buy a few bags of processed coconut … he truly did help my coconut cake dream come true!

Now, I’ll be honest, I will never, never, ever, ever do this again.  

While the fresh coconut was definitely better than bagged coconut, it was ridiculously difficult getting it out of the shell and peeling and shredding the little pieces that broke out. I would use bagged coconut for this unless I find a tool to make it easier. I would also settle for a white box cake and add coconut flavor to it. While this cake from scratch was good, it was nothing that over-the-top-special to go through the extra trouble. I WOULD definitely make the whipped cream from scratch again even though it took 40 minutes of beating to make it fluff, while my family tried to watch (and hear) “Saturday Night Live” over the roar coming from the kitchen (a little bit electric beater and little bit frazzled baker). It was so good I may just make it to have around to eat with a spoon whenever!

So, after putting the finishing touches on my coconut dream on Easter morning and getting it on its cake stand…it was GORGEOUS! I was so excited to be bringing it to the Easter celebration. And then I realized…How am I going to transport this plated 3-tiered cake? Luckily, the party wasn’t very far away and my husband who had gone ahead of me to help get the lamb prepared was able to come back to pick me up and drive while I held and balanced what became the star of the dessert table!