A Childhood Memory Revisited

Last weekend was my husband's birthday. I am always at a loss about what to give him. This year I gave him back a memory he had as a kid. I have been hearing about this for years and years. We have been eating all kinds of cakes trying to figure out what the recipe was for this special memory cake he had. So I did some research on the Internet and came up with something that sounded like it was what he remembered.

I completely understand how a memory attached to a certain food is very powerful. So I tried to recreate something for him and kept my fingers crossed.

I got out the wax paper and put it on the cake plate. I saw this trick on a number of TV shows and it works great. Only thing is, I should have done smaller strips and not covered the whole plate. utting the wax paper on the cake plate helps to keep the edges clean when you frost the bake. It was a real bear pulling them from under the cake.
The recipe I was using called for a from scratch cake, but I cheated and used a box mix. It said it was a white cake, but it looked more like a light yellow cake to me...turned out okay though.
I wanted to make the cake a four layer cake so I cut each of the cakes in half. I don't have a turn table so it was wonky. It really didn't matter since it was going to be smeared with icing.
The icing is called a "7 minute boiled icing". It really doesn't boil and it didn't take seven minutes; it took longer. I used a white vanilla extract that my friend Julie (a professional cake decorator) recommended to keep white really white. Worked perfectly!
...iced the first two layers and then stacked the rest of and iced them.
When you cover the cake with something totally, you don't have to worry about how pretty your icing is done. No one will know you are not a professional.
Here is the finished product. My husband's wonderful memory about his grandmother Marylee was her coconut cake. Something so simple has been in that man's memory his whole life. Who knew that one recipe could make him tear up when he talked about her coconut cake?
Here is the birthday boy cutting his "Memory Cake".
I am thrilled that I could make something as simple as a coconut cake that would make my husband so happy about his birthday. Here is the recipe that I used. Unless you are hellbent on baking a cake from scratch, use a mix and save yourself some time and supplies. A white box cake and that fabulous icing is every bit as good as anything else. Ask my husband, he'll tell ya!

Happy Birthday Sweetie!