Nutty for Coconut

It just showed up one day in our freight. A 25 pound box of Coconut. Janice and I looked at each other and asked in the same breath, "did you order this?" I trotted over to the bakery, no, it wasn't theirs. No one wanted this Coconut.

So I bought it! I was sure that I could find lots to do with it, Captain Daddee uses it in his Oatmeal Cookies, and his Tropical Delight Cookies, so it would have a good home.

So when I needed to bring a dessert to a meeting last Wednesday, I thought that something with Coconut as the star would be great.

Well, that was not as easily said than done. I Google'd many different request for Coconut recipes and nearly all called for Coconut creme, Coconut extract and various other forms of Coconut. Not just the fluffy, white flakes I had tons of!

So as I was pondering what to make, I wondered if maybe there would be something in one of the several bread machine books I have. Eureka, I found one that just called for Coconut! Woo hoo!

The crazy thing was the entire recipe was made either in a mixer or in a bowl, you know, by hand. Then dumped into a bread machine pan with the kneading blade removed and then baked. What's up with that? I do have an oven and my bread machine does not have a removable kneading blade, so I got the kitchenaid out and went to town. I made a loaf cake for work and a bunch of cupcakes with the second batch. Very good either way. And the surprise was no one turned the cake down. Even people who are not crazy about Coconut.

COCONUT CAKE

1/2 cup butter, or margarine, softened
scant 1 cup sugar
3 eggs, lightly beaten
2 cups, dry shredded coconut
1 cup self rising flour (1 cup flour with 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt)
3/8 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

loaf pan, sprayed with cooking spray and lightly dusted with flour

Cream the butter or margarine and sugar together until fluffy and pale, then add the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add the dry shredded coconut, flour, sour cream and lemon zest. Mix.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake at 350 for 60-70 minutes. Check with toothpick starting at 50 minutes.

Let stand 2-3 minutes, turn out onto wire rack to cool before slicing.

As I said, I also made a batch and baked them in silicone cupcake cups. They took about 25 minutes to cook, possibly more. They were delicious! I also think this changed from lemon to almond extract would be delightful. I certainly have enough coconut to play around with this!