Ultimate Cook Book_ 900 New Recipes, Thousands of Ideas - Bruce Weinstein [349]
Whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; set aside.
Beat the chunks of butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until light and pale yellow with only few sugar granules detectable, about 3 minutes.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the almond extract.
Turn off the beaters, add half the flour mixture, then beat at a very low speed just until the flour has been moistened. Add the milk and beat at low speed until fairly smooth. Beat in the remainder of the flour for a few seconds until moistened.
Scrape down the beaters, remove them, then use a rubber spatula to fold in the sweetened coconut just until evenly distributed. Pour the batter evenly into the two prepared pans and rap them against the counter a couple of times to remove any inadvertent air pockets.
Bake until springy and very lightly browned, until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center of the cakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes.
To cool and unmold: Set the layers on a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes; then unmold by inverting them onto a cutting board, removing the pans, and reinverting them onto the wire rack. Cool completely before icing with Seven-Minute Frosting.
To store: Wrap the layers individually in plastic and keep at room temperature for up to 3 days.
To ice: Working quickly, spread the still-soft Seven-Minute Frosting over the cake. Once frosted, sprinkle the toasted coconut over the top and sides of the cake and set aside under a cake dome for up to 6 hours.
Seven-Minute Frosting
Seven-Minute Frosting is a cooked frosting, like a modified Italian meringue, so named because it takes about 7 minutes to form in the double boiler over the heat (provided you’re at sea level on a low-humidity day).
Makes enough frosting for a two-layer cake
3 large egg whites
2¼ cups sugar
½ cup water
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon salt
Place the egg whites, sugar, water, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt in the top half of a large double boiler set over about 1 inch of simmering water in the bottom half. Alternatively, place the ingredients in a large bowl that fits snugly over a large saucepan with a similar amount of simmering water.
Lower the heat so the water simmers slowly. Beat with an electric mixer at medium speed until the sugar dissolves and the egg whites are foamy. Raise the speed to high and continue beating, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula, until the consistency is like marshmallow fluff (the mixer will begin to have a hard time working and the frosting will begin to mass onto the beaters), about 7 minutes. There should be no grains of sugar you can feel between your fingers. Use immediately to frost the cake.
Variations: Reduce the vanilla extract to 1 teaspoon and add ½ teaspoon almond extract, maple extract, orange extract, or rum extract with the remaining vanilla.
Substitute ½ teaspoon mint extract or lemon extract for the vanilla.
Seven-Minute Frosting is also great on Cupcakes or used as a filling for Vanilla Sandwich Creams.
Banana Layer Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
Bananas cut down some of the fat in this three-layer cake, so you can save the calories for the frosting. The bananas must be very ripe—somewhat soft and with many, many brown blotches on the skin. Buy them several days before you intend to make this cake and leave them out on the counter to ripen. Makes one 8-inch three-layer cake
10 tablespoons (1 stick plus 2 tablespoons) cool unsalted butter, cut into chunks, plus additional for greasing the pans
2 cups cake flour, plus additional for dusting the pans
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract