Wacky Girl made a delicious homemade coconut cake yesterday, in honor of Dear Granny. We didn’t use her recipe though, we made a Starlight Yellow Cake, instead. WG knows how to use the mixer now, she’s happy. Is already asking for a Kitchen Aid. She stirred in coconut, and we frosted it by breaking apart a big Hershey’s bar, and pressing the pieces onto the cake while it was still warm. The pieces didn’t melt fast enough, so we popped it back into the cooling oven for a couple of minutes. Success — and it tasted like a Mounds bar.

That’s how my Dear Granny used to frost cakes. In either a froth of raw egg whites, or by pressing a Hershey’s Kiss onto an oversized cupcake, or by lining up rows of chocolate squares on a still-warm cake. It’s more of a glaze, really. It’s perfect, and no need for powdered sugar.

Until earlier this evening, when I was googling Wacky Mommy Needs (needs cake, clearly) I was not aware that there is such a creation as a Wacky Cake. Did you know that? Did you know that children like it?

Wacky Cake II

Servings: 12

“Children like this cake.”

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon distilled white vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup water
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9 inch square pan.
2. Sift together the flour, 1 cup of the sugar, 1/4 cup of the cocoa, the soda, and the salt. Stir in the vinegar, oil, water, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared pan.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cake cool. Then spread chocolate icing over top.
4. To Make Chocolate Icing: Combine 1 cup of the sugar, 1/4 cup of the cocoa, the milk, and the butter or margarine. Boil for 1 minute. Stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla and continue stirring until partially cool. Spread over cake.

Here is the best recipe — my Dear Granny would make this every year for my birthday:

COCONUT CAKE
First get a coconut from the store. (Don’t buy one unless you can shake it and hear the milk inside.) Take scissors or a screwdriver. There are three little eyes at the end of the coconut. Make a hole in it with the scissors or screwdriver. Make a hole and drain the milk out.

Then hit it with a hammer and get the shell off. Take a knife, gouge down in there and get all the pieces of coconut and get them out of the shell. Get all the brown off. You can grate it — that’s how Mama used to do it, but it’s hard on your fingers. I run it through the blender — that flakes the coconut up. Or if you got a food processor you can run it through that. Then I add a couple of tablespoons of sugar on the coconut to sweeten it up.

(You can freeze the coconut, too — it freezes well.)

Then, get a Betty Crocker white cake mix. For the liquid in there — I think it calls for milk — use part coconut milk. Save part of the coconut milk for the frosting. Use egg whites, not whole eggs, or else you’ll have a yellow cake.

You put the oven on 350 degrees. Put your cake in there to bake. It takes about 35 minutes or something like that. It will tell you on the box.

You take one of your pans, a small one, you put a cup of sugar, and pour some coconut milk over the sugar. Cook it until you put a spoon in there and it will kind of clump. Then you have three egg whites, beaten pretty stiff, in the mixer. Turn the mixer on high. As it’s mixing, pour the sugar and coconut milk mixture over the egg whites. It should be pretty thick by then.

Ice your cake with that, then sprinkle coconut all over the top of the cake. That’s it.

(love you, Grandma. nancy)