Coconut Cream Layer Cake

Serves: 12 to 16 Prep time: 30 minutes Bake time: 22 to 25 minutes

Ingredients

Cake:

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

2 cups Dixie Crystals granulated sugar

4 large eggs

1 cup real coconut milk

1/2 teaspoon real coconut extract

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon fresh baking soda

1/2 teaspoon fresh baking powder

2 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour

Coconut buttercream

2 cups unsalted, softened butter

2 tablespoons coconut milk

1/2 teaspoon real coconut extract

7 cups Dixie Crystals Confectioners Sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1, 14 ounce bag of sweetened, flaked coconut

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Butter and flour 2, 9 inch cake pans.  Line with parchment paper and set aside.

In your mixing bowl, beat together the softened butter and sugar until light and fluffy…about 2 minutes.

Add the eggs in one at a time.  Add in the coconut extract, salt, baking soda and baking powder.

Alternate adding the coconut milk and the flour until they are both incorporated.  Be careful not to over mix the batter.

Spread the batter evenly between both pans.

Bake for between 22 and 26 minutes.  You can tell if the cakes are done by their golden brown color, and by touching the tops and seeing if the cake springs back.

Remove the pans from the oven and cool for 15 minutes before inverting them.

Place the layers in the fridge while you make the buttercream.

Make the buttercream:

In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream the butter, coconut extract, coconut milk and salt until combined.

Slowly add in the Dixie Crystals Confectioners Sugar one cup at a time.

Beat the buttercream until it is smooth and creamy.

Take the cake layers out of the fridge and fill and frost the cake.  Use a generous amount between the layers so you have a nice thick layer of buttercream.

Immediately after you frost the cake, press the sweetened coconut directly onto the cake. ( I did this over the sink because it’s super messy ) 🙂  I used a lot of coconut, but still had some leftover in the bag.  You can use as much as you like, but you want to cover all the buttercream.

Start on the sides, going around the cake slowly, then sprinkle the coconut on top of the cake.

Gently press the coconut into the cake so it sticks.

Keep under a cake dome until ready to serve.

Enjoy this amazingly delicious cake 🙂