Rules are made to be broken

As a rule, I do not make cakes from scratch. This is mostly because I think cake mixes are so dang easy, and imho, taste pretty dang good.

Not anymore.

This is quite possibly THE MOST AMAZING cake I have ever tasted. And I made it myself, thank you very much. My dessert-loving mama would be so proud if she were alive today.

As usual, I found it on a blog, but when I went back to my  3 usual food blogs, it wasn't there, so it must be on a site I do not usually stalk. When I tried to google it, I still coudn't find it. I'm pretty sure it was on one of those "round-up" editions of a blog where people link up things they've done the past week to share them with everyone. Skip to My Lou is probably my favorite, and I made a good-faith effor just now and looked through the past 2 "Made by you Mondays" to try to find it, with no luck. God bless those round-ups; I've found so many cool things that way.

Anyhoo, sorry to the person who deserves the credit, but this cake is too good not to share! Of course, you really can't go wrong when there is cream in the cake AND sour cream in the frosting!



Chocolate Cake with Sour Cream Icing and Coconut

 Ha! When I went to copy and paste the recipe look at what I did! I guess I was so tired of not remembering where I got recipes that I included the link when I took it from the website!

Chocolate Cake with Coconut Cream Recipe


By Woman's Day Kitchen from Woman's Day
January 1, 2011

BUT! I went to the site so that I could double check the link and then just link you to the recipe, but it didn't work. Don't know what that's all about. So here's the recipe, with my changes, additions, suggestions, etc.
Cake Ingredients Cooking spray and flour, for the pan (I am my mother's daughter and use Crisco when "greasing" a pan)
1 3/4 c flour (I use Costco's high fiber flour in all my baking...at this time)
3/4 c unsweetened powdered cocoa (I used an 8-year-old unopened can of Hershey's...still good!)
1 1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c packed brown suger (I didn't pack so hard)
1 1⁄2 tsp baking soda
1⁄2 tsp baking powder
1⁄2 tsp kosher salt (just happened to have this on hand; can't imagine regular salt wouldn't do just fine)
1 c whole milk (I only had heavy cream on hand; probably one of the reasons it turned out so yummy!)
1⁄2 c canola oil (my oil of choice for baking)
2 large eggs (I used 2 small-medium eggs and added 1/3 cup egg whites from a carton)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract (I used 3 tsp)
3/4 c boiling water

Icing Ingredients1 1⁄2 cups heavy cream
1⁄2 cup reduced-fat sour cream
1⁄4 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 cups unsweetened coconut (I used sweetened)
(I tasted the icing before I iced the cake and the sour cream taste was so overwhelming, I was startled. After I iced it and let it sit in 'fridge for a few hours, it tasted great. But I am going to add a tsp of vanilla to the icing next time just to see if it tastes as good or better)
Recipe Preparation
1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease two 8 x 2-in. round cake pans (me - Crisco!). Line bottoms with wax paper; spray the paper (love this idea!). Dust with flour.
2. Whisk together flour, cocoa, sugars, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a large measuring cup or bowl, whisk together milk, oil, eggs and vanilla. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and mix until fully incorporated.
3. Add the boiling water to the batter and mix well to combine (the batter will be thin).
4. Divide the batter between the prepared pans and bake until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pan before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Icing Preparation1. With an electric mixer, beat the heavy cream, sour cream and confectioners’ sugar in a large bowl until stiff peaks form (if adding vanilla, do so here).
2. Place one of the cakes on a platter and spread 1 cup frosting over the top. (Don't be stingy; I was. The cake would have been tons better with a nice full middle icing layer, and there's plenty of icing to do it. Also, I thought it would be great to add raspberry freezer jam to the icing for this part.)
3. Gently place other cake on top and frost with the remaining icing. Sprinkle coconut all over the cake. Serve immediately or refrigerate, up to 1 day. (I had it for 3 days and it actually gets better the longer it's in the 'fridge!)

This would be a great cake for a low-key wedding. For other occasions, the cake would look elegant with cocoa powder sprinkled on top. But I have to say, my pictures don't do it justice; it's a gorgeous-looking cake!).