I hope you enjoy reading this issue of Between the Layers! For more recipes, consider becoming a Paid Subscriber. I Baked Dolly’s Coconut Cake - No. 146You don’t have to work 9 to 5 on this one! But it needs my frosting.
IF THE SOUTH HAD ROYALTY, Dolly Parton would be Queen. She’s got everyone’s best interest, knows what to say and when to say it, and isn’t scared of stepping up when needed. And the girl can sing. Before there was a Covid vaccine she paid for the Pfizer research that would take place at Vanderbilt Medical Center here in Nashville. And when the Gatlinburg Wildfires occurred in 2016, this East Tennessee native created a $12 million fund to help the 900 families in Sevier County who lost their homes. Dolly moves mountains, and people line up to help her. So, it was with a bit of trepidation that I pulled a bright pink box of cake mix off the grocery shelf. I was curious to bake it to see if it was good enough for her to put her face on a Duncan Hines box, and I figured what with my knowledge of cake mixes and my fascination of all things cake, I might be a good judge. But I was worried at the same time because I shoot straight and am not going to sugar-coat anything, and what with how much everyone loves rags-to-riches Dolly, would they forgive me if I trashed her cake mix?
Bake day arrives for Dolly’s coconut cakeI did what you’re supposed to do when you open a box of cake mix. I followed the directions. You don’t know how hard that was for me… The ingredients needed for the prep are milk, unsalted butter (melted), and eggs. I used whole milk and large eggs because that’s what I always use to bake a cake. While the instructions say to melt the butter, it didn’t say to warm the milk or bring the eggs to room temperature. But you could do that as well, and they are little things I would do if baking a coconut cake from scratch because they improve the rise. But honestly, you don’t need to worry about the rise. It’s a mix. And it’s lumpy when you open the box, but after you add the butter, milk, and eggs, and beat on low 30 seconds and then on medium for 2 minutes, it is smooth. I poured it into two 8-inch round layer pans greased with a little butter. (Notice that you need 8-inch, not 9-inch pans. These cakes would not bake up so high in the larger pans.)
And I weighed the layers to make sure they had equal amounts of batter so they would be done at the same time. I placed them side by side in the preheated 350-degree oven at 10:42 am, and made sure the oven light was on. I always do this, and as I sit at the table in the middle of my kitchen and write this story, I can watch those cakes bake. They were ready right at 26 minutes, just like the box says. And I let them cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes, then they released like a dream... Subscribe to Anne Byrn: Between the Layers to read the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Anne Byrn: Between the Layers to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
© 2022 Anne Byrn
|
0 comments:
Post a Comment