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!!!
