While it took me over a year to come up with a birthday celebration (no one I know aged this past year???) excuse to bake what can only be described as the most amazing coconut cake in the world, I held onto the taste memory ever since I willed myself to eat only a bite of my friend,
Mrs. Magpie's, birthday cake.
When the cake was presented, I told myself to think of my thighs, which since birth have not grown in proportion to the rest of my body. This is not an exaggeration. Had my mother kept a baby book photo record of my growth, along with my weight record, I would be sharing the proof. Never mind the fact that I reached my adult height of sixty inches at age fourteen, my thighs did not receive the full growth achieved message.
As soon as my taste buds met the cake on that fateful day in 2010, all thigh thoughts went out the window. I knew one day we would meet again. SH's birthday (the hubby, if you're new to my blog) was the excuse to bake.
Mrs. Magpie's friend, Nancy, graciously shared the recipe. Had she not, I would have pestered Mrs. Magpie unrelentlessly. Yes, the cake is THAT good.
Betty's Sour Cream Thighs Be Damned Coconut Cake
1 package yellow cake mix
1 16-ounce container of sour cream (light sour cream worked well for me)
2 cups sugar
1 8-ounce container of whipped topping, thawed (After saving calories with light sour cream, I went for full fat whipped topping. We all have our limits, you know.)
3 6-ounce packages of frozen coconut, thawed and divided (Frozen coconut was a new to me product. It was found near the frozen fruit)
Bake cake according to directions in two 8-inch round cake pans.
Freeze cake.
Three days before you are ready to serve, slice horizontally into 4 separate layers.
Two of the four layers
Combine sour cream and sugar in a bowl, and then mix with 12 ounces of the coconut.
Combine one cup of this coconut mixture with your with your whipped topping in a separate bowl and set aside.
Spoon and spread remaining coconut/sour cream mixture evenly on the layers of your cake and stack.
Ice the top and the sides of the cake with the coconut and whipped topping mixture that you set aside.
Cover and chill in the refrigerator for three days. Cover the cake with a plastic or glass cake lid, whichever you have. If you don't have either, put toothpicks in the cake and make a tent out of tinfoil to cover.
When you are ready to serve, take the remaining 6 ounces of thawed coconut and pat that on the top and sides of the cake.
Eat a slice of cake.
Repeat until you see noticeable thigh expansion.
Trust me, it works.
This cake, according to my family of coconut lovers, is the best cake in the entire world. According to Nancy, it is from the Lighthouse Society cookbook. My guess is the St. Augustine Lighthouse, although my Google search came up short.
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