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Robin’s Nest Coconut Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

Posted at 10:52 am by StephMo

Apr 6th

I had seen a picture of this cute cake and decided to give it my own spin. I used my favorite white cake recipe from my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook and added some coconut. You don’t have to add the coconut, but it is so good in this cake! The cake is moist and has a nice thick dense consistency with the coconut.

For the frosting I am more of a fan of cream cheese frosting, but you could use a buttercream frosting if you prefer. I have a wonderful vanilla buttercream recipe in another blog.

As you can see I am not a professional cake decorator, but my cakes are delicious and to me that is the most important part. This cake is really not hard to make and whoever you serve it to will be very impressed.

Cake Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups flour

1 2/3 cups sugar

2/3 cup shortening

1 1/4 cups milk

3 1/2 tsps. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. vanilla

5 large egg whites

1 cup sweetened coconut

Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter, softened

8 oz. block cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

Blue food coloring

Additional Ingredients:

1/2 cup sweetened coconut

Melting chocolate

Egg candies

Grease and flour three 6″ cake pans. I greased the pans, then added a layer of parchment paper on the bottoms, then greased again and floured. The pans I used are stainless and not non-stick so I wanted to be sure they came out perfectly.

Combine all ingredients except egg whites in a large mixing bowl or stand mixer.

Beat on low speed for 30 seconds scraping the bowl constantly. Continue mixing on high speed for 2 minutes scraping occassionally. With the stand mixture I let it go about a minute, turned it off and scraped, then continued for another minute.

Add the egg whites and continue beating on high for two more minutes. Fold in 1 cup of coconut.

Divide evenly between the three pans and bake at 350 degrees until toothpick inserted comes out clean. My pans took about 30 minutes.

While the cakes were baking I toasted the coconut for the nest.

In a small frying pan add the coconut and cook over low/medium heat stirring frequently until toasted. Set aside.

When the cakes are done allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pans before transferring to wire racks. Cool completely.

Once cakes are cool you can make the cream cheese frosting.

Beat the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Beat in vanilla. Beat in confectioners sugar until smooth. Give the frosting a taste and see if you think it should be sweeter and if so, add a little more sugar to taste.

Add a few drops of blue food coloring and combine well.

On a cake stand start building the cake and adding frosting in between the layers.

I normally have the rounded side of the cake be the top layer, but for this cake I had the flat side on the top. It was easier to make the nest this way.

Once the cake is completely frosted it is time to splatter the chocolate!

I used a few melting wafers for my splatter, but you can use whatever you normally use. Once the chocolate was melted I used a pastry brush and flicked the chocolate onto the cake. I also managed to flick the chocolate all over my walls so you may want to be a little more careful than I was.

Now just build the nest!

For the eggs I used Robin’s Egg candies and I used a toothpick and put a few dots on the eggs.

Make sure to keep the cake refrigerated because of the cream cheese frosting. If you use buttercream you don’t need to.

So, so delicious!!!

Posted in Cakes, Recipes, Robin's Nest Cake | Tagged cake, cake recipe, cream cheese frosting recipe, easter baking ideas, easter cake, easter recipes, food blog, food blogger, nest cake, robins nest cake, stephanie's slice of life, white cake recipe

Carrot Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

Posted at 10:52 am by StephMo

Aug 4th

I can officially say this is my favorite cake, and not just my favorite cake recipe, but my favorite cake. It is better than a bakery. While it is very time consuming to make, it is completely worth it. Unfortunately the vintage lighting in my Maine cottage was not very good for photos 🙁

Carrot cake was my wedding cake and every year on our anniversary we would buy a carrot cake from the same bakery. When they stopped offering to bake the cake without walnuts, instead of looking for another bakery I decided I would just bake a carrot cake for our anniversary. HUGE thank you to that bakery because this cake is so much better! Now every year on our anniversary we have this cake.

Even though I do not use walnuts you can absolutely add them to this recipe if you choose. I also only use 1/2 cup raisins because no one in my family likes raisins except me. If you enjoy a carrot cake with more raisins you can increase that to 1 cup.

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

3 extra large eggs (room temperature)

1 1/3 cups vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

2 cups flour (plus 1 tbsp)

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. baking soda

1 1/2 tsp. salt

1 lb. carrots grated

1/2 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease two 9″ round cake pans, line with parchment paper, then grease and flour the parchment paper.

Peel the carrots and grate them using the fine side of a hand grater, you do not want the carrots shredded. Once grated put them aside. This is my least favorite part of making this cake, and pretty much the only reason I don’t make this cake more often.

In a large mixing bowl combine the sugar, eggs, and oil and beat on medium speed with an electric mixer for 2 minutes.

Stir in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt.

Slowly add the dry mixture to the wet mixture while beating on low speed with the electric mixer. The batter will be thick.

In a third bowl combine 1 tbsp. of flour with the carrots and raisins and mix well. This helps prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the cakes.

Have you noticed the vintage Pyrex bowls yet? These were my mother’s, I love everything vintage.

Stir the carrot mixture into the cake batter and pour into prepared pans.

Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees, then reduce the heat to 350 degrees and bake for another 25-30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool the cakes in the pans for 15 minutes and then transfer them to wire racks to cool completely.

Once the cakes are cool it is time to frost these delicious cakes with cream cheese frosting!

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 stick of butter softened (1/2 cup)

1 8 oz. block of cream cheese softened

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (or more per taste)

Using an electric mixer on medium speed beat the butter and cream cheese until well mixed and smooth. Add the vanilla and beat just until combined. Beat in the powdered sugar.

You may like the frosting sweeter and if so, just add a little more powdered sugar.

Place one of the cakes upside down on a dish or cake stand and start frosting the middle.