ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

So last month I didn’t have much going on and I managed to somehow scrape together a blog entry every single day of the month.  This month I have so much going on that I haven’t felt like I really had the time to sit down and write about it.

We’ve settled on August 8 to be married at the courthouse, since the numerical significance of this date was so appealing that my boss allowed me to have the day off even though we’re not really supposed to take days off before the middle of the month or so.  The day after that, we’re having a reception at his aunt’s fancy’s condo here in town.  It started out as a rather small affair and by now has grown to be bigger than I originally imagined.  But today I finally got the invitations all mailed and am keeping my fingers crossed that I didn’t forget anyone.  At least that part is over with.  I still have some more things to do.  His dad’s wife wants me to make a decision about flowers, which I’ve been deferring since I more or less have no idea what I am doing in that area.  I also want to get the house cleaned up so that when we go on our honeymoon another week after the wedding, we’ll get to come home and have it be tidy and welcoming.

I’m looking forward to it all coming together, but I’m not sure why women get so excited about planning their perfect wedding.  This crap is a lot of work, and most brides aren’t even planning to cook much of the food themselves.  Frankly, I’m a little surprised more people don’t opt to throw a crock pot of beanie weenies on a card table and call it good.  If we did this thing for real, it would be ridiculously expensive.  Luckily, we get the space for free and we’ll be doing most of the food ourselves.  A couple months ago we weren’t even planning to have a party, and at this point we’re having a reception for family and friends.  So it’s mushroomed a little.  But I have no expectation of things fitting some nebulous standard of perfection.  Yes, I am going to be that bride who probably buys some of the wedding food at Costco.

But I did successfully test the cheesecake recipe pictured on the cover of The Best Light Recipe, which was the first light-cooking book I purchased when I started Weight Watchers.  I have never cooked a dud from this book, although the recipes tend to be rather time-consuming.  That’s probably why they are good.  The cheesecake was a lot of work and frankly, shockingly good.  The remainder is in the freezer right now being tested for its freezability, but perhaps when I pull it out later I’ll remember to snap a picture for my food porn collection. I also tried a new coconut cake recipe, which I made up in my head on Friday and then baked for the first time on Sunday.  We found it to be a success as well.

The coconut failure cake went over rather well at work last week.  When I got home Thursday night I realized to my alarm that I’d forgotten to go back and collect my plate that afternoon, and hoped the housekeeping staff wouldn’t have thrown it out.  I mean, it was like a $3 plate originally.  So you can imagine how attached I am.  When I got back the next morning some mystery person had taken the “EAT ME” note I’d written and scrawled, “Thank you / My friends and I licked the platter clean.”  This was faintly surprising to me, since I found the icing barely tolerable and the cake forgettable at best.  But I was cheered by these tidings and resolved to discard the recipe in my book entirely and make up my own coconut cake recipe.  I also decided to make things much easier on myself and use a cake mix as the base.  From scratch?  Who gives a shit when the wedding is less than a month away now?

So my second effort at coconut cake was much more satisfactory.  I elected, as I usually do, for an icebox cake, since for some reason I love cold cakes.  This one turned out light and fluffy where the other cake was short and dense, the new topping I made was cool and refreshing and not at all cloying, and the cake looked much nicer when all was said and done.  It was good enough that I’d like to experiment in the future with replacing some or all of the oil with pureed fruit, but I didn’t want to mess with it when I needed to get this recipe workable on a deadline.

Basically, I looked up a lot of coconut cake recipes online.  They ranged in complexity, but one thing that confused me was that a lot of them did not actually contain any coconut ingredients in the cake itself.  Which I thought was weird, personally.  So I decided that the easiest approach would basically be to make a white cake mix according to the package instructions, but replace the water with coconut milk and add some shredded coconut to the batter.  Then I’d make the topping with coconut flavorings as well and call it good.

Reinventing the Coconut Cake

• 1 18.25-oz box of white cake mix
• 3 egg whites
• 1-1/4 cups light coconut milk
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut

• 1 4-serving size box of instant vanilla pudding, sugar free and fat free
• Around 1 cup light coconut milk (supplement with skim milk if topping is too thick)
• 1 8-oz tub fat free Cool Whip
• 1/2 cup shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare the cake mix more or less according to the package instructions, replacing the water with the coconut milk and stirring in the half cup of coconut at the end.  Bake in two layer pans greased with nonstick spray.  Mine broke up a little when I turned the second layer out of the pan, so you may want to consider cutting circles of parchment to put in the bottom of the pans.  Bake according to the package instructions until done and a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool the cakes on a wire rack for around 10 minutes before turning out of the pan onto the rack to cool.  Let them cool to room temperature.  If either layer got a little mauled coming out of the pan, make it into the bottom layer.

To make the topping, combine the pudding and the coconut milk in a large-ish bowl and beat on medium speed until the mixture thickens.  When I made the cake, I had some extra coconut milk in the fridge so I used 1-1/4 cups in the topping.  But if you want to just buy one can of coconut milk for frugality’s sake, I recommend dividing it roughly in half and supplementing it with skim milk to make the needed 1-1/4 cups for both cake and topping.  Clear as mud?

Stir the cool whip into the pudding mixture with a spoon or spatula until well blended.  Place the bottom layer on a plate and top it with some of the pudding mixture (I think I iced it about 3/8 inch high).  Sprinkle 1/4 cup of the coconut on top of that and put the second layer on top of it, upside down so that the top of the cake is flat.  Ice the top and sides with the pudding mixture and top with the remaining coconut.

I think this cake is best left in the fridge for a few hours to get very cold before serving, but it certainly won’t taste bad if you eat it sooner than that.  We left it in the fridge loosely covered with plastic wrap since this past Sunday and it has still tasted good every day between then and now.