Happy National Cake Day! When I began writing this post, I had no idea that today was National Cake Day. In fact, this cake came about by accident. As you may know, I’m no genius when it comes to baking pies. I made this one from scratch a few weeks ago, and was quite proud of myself. It’s one of my favorite recipes of all time, and last week, I had a chance to make it again. While I adore this recipe, it uses 9 egg yolks (yes, it is quite decadent)! There are only so many egg whites I can eat for breakfast, and my freezer was already full of them from previous chocolate pie and pudding recipes, so I thought about using them to make a cake.
After looking through some old cookbooks, I came across a coconut cake that sounded heavenly. All too often, coconut cakes are just vanilla cakes that are buried under a pile of toasted coconut. This cake claimed to real coconut flavor, both in the cake and the frosting. And guess what? It called for exactly 9 egg whites!
This recipe uses what is called the “reverse creaming method,” in which the ingredients are mixed together in a different order than the traditional creaming method. It was an idea that was introduced by Rose Levy Berenbaum, author of The Cake Bible. For a more detailed explanation, click here. This was my first time using this method, and it won’t be my last. The cake was so light and fluffy, but not in a weird airy boxed mix kind of way.
