Before I got my gall bladder yanked I was Jack Sprat to her husband: I was on the White Diet and couldn’t eat anything that wasn’t white. This excluded onions and garlic, though. The only place I could safely eat was Old People Buffet, where the fat and flavor were cooked out of everything, just like in the Old Country (I assumed they were from the burbs of Minneapolis long before I knew it).
I know the instinctive reaction for some people is to always go for scratch if possible but the standard white or yellow cake is something which it’s actually fairly tricky for a scratch cake to compare with a box cake. Box cakes are much moister simply because of a bunch of chemicals in the mix that retain moisture.
No help on the cake from me, but since I see people grumbling about opening coconuts, I thought I’d just throw in an fyi here.
Aankh’s Exotic Indian Guide to Opening a Coconut
[ol]
[li]If you’re trying to pry open a brown coconut, those three eyes are where you start. They’re the softest bit. Use a screwdriver or a drill to poke a hole in one or more of them. You’ll probably want to experiment with all three, because some eyes are softer than others. My 80 year old arthritic grandmother does this with ease and she uses a twig. It’s easy.[/li][li]Prop the coconut on a glass and let all the water seep out. Just leave it there and come back to it after a while.[/li][li]Wrap the now empty coconut in a thick towel. This is to prevent you from getting impaled on flying shell shards.[/li][li]Whack with a hammer a couple times. Examine. Repeat if necessary.[/li][li]The meat should start separating from the shell on its own. Pry the stubborn bits out with a knife/screwdriver. If you are one of those people who feature on AsSeenOnTV infomercials (“Whenever I try to cut a tomato with my normal knife it keeps slipping and stabbing my husband. He wants to leave me now. Kitchen knives have ended my marriage!”), this is the bit where you will impale yourself. If you are normal, you will manage to merely scratch yourself, allowing you to indulge in guiltless profanity.[/li][/ol]
Your coconut is now open.
I can’t stand the flavor that pervades most cake mixes. I am not sure if it is the leavening, or the preservatives, but I would rather do a layer cake by hand and use aluminum free baking powder(Mumfords). The flavor can’t be beat. Now Jiffy muffin mixes, those I don’t mind. I am not sure if the flavor I don’t like is entirely missing from Jiffy mix muffins or if the flavor of the muffin is not as delicate as cake so it is masked better.
The method we use to open a coconut is to rap it a couple of times with the back of a heavy knife while holding it over a bowl to catch the liquid. It is amazing how well this works. I love fresh coconut, but usually if I am baking, I use bagged coconut. Now for cocktails, I use fresh when I can.
Zsofia, do you know that your father likes coconut cake made from fresh coconut better? It may well be that what he likes best is cake made with sweetened pre-shredded coconut.
P.S.
When recipes say use yellow cake mix, I use this cake recipe:
Classic Butter Cake
Here’s a recipe I have used before: Coconut Cake from scratch made with dessicated coconut. No need to go near the scariness of real coconut, just use the stuff that comes in a packet. And no cake mix either, which is just a travesty. If you’re going to make cake, make it properly!
Yeah, lee, coconut cake is one of them classic Southern fancy cakes, and come to think of it he may never have had one made with a coconut from a tree in his life. 
Two things:
-If the guy likes fake coconut in his cake, then by golly give it to him and don’t mess around with the real stuff (which is way better fyi… I don’t like the fake stuff either).
-allrecipes.com is my favorite site and has yet to let me down. But I think it is helpful to know how to use it*. Search for what you want. Then sort by rating. Then scroll down to find the “hit” recipe(s) which will have about 4 and half stars and the most reviews, frequently over 100. Read a number of reviews, including some of the not-so-great reviews to understand what the recipe’s strengths and weaknesses are. Make the recipe as is or incorporating some of the changes described in the reviews.
*my opinion/way of using it of course, but I hope it is helpful to others.
psssst… Zsofia check your private messages!
Hi Zofia, Check your PM! Coconut Layer Cake recipe has been sent.
I now have a craving for coconut cake…and I don’t even really like coconut that much!
[rant]
This sort of shit drives me crazy. My favorite was a set of epicurious reviews on goulash soup. The basic recipe was fairly authentic. I chimed in with some minor points about the different Hungarian variations on it and, if people were concerned about authenticity, what they could do to make it more like the old country version. Overall, however, the recipe was pretty spot-on and well-researched. A couple Hungarians chimed in to agree. Then some guy with a German born-and-raised wife complains that the wife laughed at the recipe (not mine, but Epicurious’s) saying that he’s lived and traveled Germany and Europe for 35 years and he’s never seen a goulash like this, and that the writer should not write recipes if she doesn’t know what she’s talking about, etc., etc. Well, you idiot, the recipe is for Hungarian goulash soup, not German goulash. Once you leave Hungary, what is called goulash changes very quickly from thicker stews with lots of veggies (Germany and Austria) to macaroni and ground beef (US).
Italian recipes are another one that get really abused. There’s some really good, straightforward simple authentic Italian recipes on that site, but people complain about them not being flavorful enough, throwing everything-but-the-kitchen-sink in them to tart them up, probably because their exposure is to the more sauced, heavily-spiced, and over-garlicked Italian-American variations, and probably use crappy store-bought plum tomatoes rather than garden-grown ones or cans of San Marzanos (or a good domestic brand like Muir Glen.)
[/rant]
Or you could be a bad-ass like Bobby Flay and open it with a machete.
Zsofia, can you link/share your chocolate layer cake recipe?
It’s this one. Absolutely foolproof - I’ve given it to people who have never made a cake from scratch before and it always turns out gorgeous. Note that it has all the hallmarks of a winner from Allrecipes - over 300 reviews, about four and a half stars. I think people love it because the frosting isn’t too sweet.
ETA - I forget, I may cut down the sugar in the icing sometimes. If I do it’s because a lot of the reviews suggest it, although those people will sometimes do the stupidest things to cut fat and sugar out of things. “I made the Lard-Laced Creme Brulee just like the recipe said, only I made it with Splenda, cut out the lard, and used skim milk. It was awful! The kids wouldn’t touch it, and my husband won’t eat anything with a French word in it anyway. Zero stars!”
I do this for my coconut cake, but I use Coco Lopez to drizzle over the baked (and still warm) cake. It’s cream of coconut, and adds moistness and flavor.
ETA: Zsofia, I have a good recipe for Coconut Cake, and I can post it or PM you if you’d like.
This is how I use Allrecipes, too, and it’s my favorite recipe site. I’ve made everything from Chicken Cordon Bleu to Chocolate Chip Cookies to Hot and Sour Chicken soup using recipes from the site and I’ve never had anything go badly or not work out. Sure, there’s things I wouldn’t cook again, but mostly because I was having a weird craving that’s not likely to come up again for a while (why I wanted Sloppy Joe’s so bad I’ll never know). Also, I make the recipes my own because, as so many have said, the spices are on the tame side. But I know how to add more spices, and I do!
Thanks for the link. It’s going to be my first attempt at baking a cake completely from scratch. I noticed the mixed reviews on the frosting - I think I’ll stick with the recipe for my first attempt. I’ve never understood the people that completely change the recipe and then give it a bad review, either.
One more question - when recipes ask for sweetened flaked coconut, do they mean the stuff in the baking aisle or the stuff in the freezer section?
I would assume it meant the stuff in the baking aisle, like the Baker’s Angel Flake.
