As my mother and most of my friends will tell you, I may have been the pickiest child on the planet. I am a lot better now — although I still won’t eat lunch meat or cold sandwiches, mushrooms, fish, raw onion, cantaloupe or many breakfast pastries — but even at my pickiest, I loved coconut. So I never understood why so many people have an aversion to coconut. I guess it’s the texture?

Anyway, if you are one of those people who hate coconut, I’m sorry. You’re missing out. And actually, if your issue is just the texture, you could make this cake and frosting and just leave off the sweetened flake coconut on top. Because this cake is good.

You may recall that I made a beautiful but kinda dry/not good coconut cake for my birthday. Since then I’d been waiting for another occasion to bake a better one. Then we were invited to go watch a Navy game at Toby’s co-worker’s house.

My grandmother’s coconut cake started with a cake mix, but I wanted something from scratch. I decided to make the King Arthur Flour white cake I used for the red, white and blue cupcakes. And since I was going to poke holes in the cake and pour cream of coconut over it, I wasn’t sure a round layer cake would work. So I made a bundt. Much prettier than a rectangle.

I have had some issues with bundts coming out of the pan properly in the past, but this time it came out almost perfect (use lots of cooking spray). It was actually kind of sad to cover it in frosting. But the frosting is so good, I wasn’t sad for long.

As I mentioned, you need to poke holes in the hot cake (I used a fork) and then pour cream of coconut all over it, so the cake absorbs as much of the cream of coconut as possible. This makes the cake a bit more coconutty and super moist. You could use sweetened condensed milk instead, but obviously that doesn’t add any extra coconut flavor.

Have you ever opened a can of coconut milk and found it had separated? That is actually good for this frosting. I used Goya coconut milk, because it seems like the separation happens more often for me with that brand, but any brand will do. Either way, you use a thin dish towel (linen is best, but I didn’t have any clean linen towels) to separate the creamy, solid part from the water.

Now, the recipe says to put the towel over a strainer, but that seemed like overkill to me. You do need to make sure the ends of the towel are under the bowl or something, though, so the whole thing doesn’t fall into the center. Anyway, after you get that creamy part, you add it to the frosting. You won’t be sorry.

Oddly, the host of the party also made a bundt cake. So it was a two-bundt party. No one complained.

Don’t hate.

If you’re not into all-white cakes, you can trick it out by dying the coconut… or just stick a flower in the middle.

Coconut cake (Cake adapted from King Arthur flour and my grandmother, frosting from King Arthur Flour)
Cake
2 3/4 cups cake flour (I used King Arthur unbleached cake flour blend)
1 2/3 cups sugar (they recommend superfine sugar, I used regular)
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 large eggs whites plus 1 whole large egg
1 cup full-fat vanilla yogurt or 1 cup whole milk (I used milk)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 can cream of coconut (such as Coco Lopez)

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Grease a 9×13 cake pan or a bundt pan.

Mix the dry ingredients on slow speed to blend. Add the soft butter and mix until evenly crumbly, “like fine damp sand.” (Apparently it may form a paste – but depends on the butter and type of sugar)
Add the egg whites one at a time, then the whole egg, beating well and scraping down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk the milk (or yogurt) with the extracts. Add that mixture, 1/3 at a time, to the egg and flour mixture. Beat 1 to 2 minutes after each addition, until fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Pour the batter into prepared cake pan and bake until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center (or a point roughly equidistant from the outside and inside rings of the cake pan) comes out clean. This took about 45 minutes for me, but start checking the cake at 35 minutes.

Carefully remove the cake from the pan and place on a plate or cake circle covered in foil. Poke holes all over the top (and sides, if it’s a bundt) of cake with a fork or skewer. Shake the cream of coconut well, then open can and immediately drizzle/pour over the hot cake, covering as much of the cake as possible. Allow cake to cool.

Drain/wipe/spoon off excess cream of coconut before frosting, if necessary.

Frosting
1 (14-ounce can) unsweetened coconut milk (if you have a can of coconut milk that’s separated or a brand that tends to separate, this is the time to use it)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
5 1/2 cups powdered/confectioners’ sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla (or 3 to 4 drops strong coconut flavoring)
Sweetened flake coconut

Place a clean, thin dish towel (preferably linen) over a bowl and fix ends under bowl so towel does not fall into center (or set a strainer or colander over the bowl and line it with the towel). Open the can of coconut milk without shaking it. Pour the coconut milk onto the towel and let the coconut water drain until only thick coconut cream remains on top (this could take a few hours).

After coconut is ready, cream the butter with 2 cups of powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the salt and vanilla until smooth. Add the coconut cream and mix well.

Gradually add more powdered sugar, stopping to scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl occasionally, until frosting is a good consistency for spreading. Frost cake with room-temperature frosting and then sprinkle sweetened flake coconut over top of cake. Press more coconut onto sides of cake, if desired.