The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook: Coconut Meringue Cake

I've always read a lot of American food blogs, particularly baking ones. I think partly because the things they were baking were not necessarily part of the every day British baking lexicon - there were key lime pies, lemonade bars, tres leches cakes... I could go on.

What often baffled me a little about some of the blogs I read was the prevalence of using box mixes to make cakes. It must be a difference in culture because over here my impression has always been that box mixes are mostly deployed by parents to placate children who want to bake looking for an easy option. In the States, however, it seems like it is commonplace to bake from these rather than 'from scratch' and often a box of  cake mix will be the starting point for a recipe that then goes on to add extra eggs, milk, butter. You know, the things that would go into a normal cake.  It always seemed like an oddly lazy option to me, particularly for people who were supposed to be keen bakers. Maybe these cakes turned out to be delicious though, who knows? We don't get 'white cake box mix' here so I will never find out.

I bought the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook when we were at peak cupcake in the UK. The American style bakery was supposedly THE place to go and get cupcakes in London at the time so surely meant that the recipes in this book should yield the best cupcakes I had ever made? Sadly not.  I tried several cupcakes in this book and none of them worked well. The carrot cake recipe however was divine and I've made it a number of times - much to the delight of colleagues in one office who were particularly keen on the thick layer of cream cheese icing.

So when turning to this book as part of my challenge I skipped straight past the cupcakes to the layer cakes. The American layer cake is fantastically tall, frosted creations that make the British stalwart of a sponge sandwiched with buttercream seem a little dowdy (though I will not hear a word said against a proper Victoria sponge). Where we go for 2 layers they go for 3 or more and unless they are going 'naked' the whole thing tends to be coated in a layer of buttercream or ganache, not just between the layers. They are decadent, spectacular centerpieces.

I selected the Coconut Meringue cake. This is a white cake soaked in a syrup made from coconut water and layered with boiled meringue frosting and grated fresh coconut. It piqued my interest as there were a number of techniques I'd not tried before.

There isn't often much call for power tools when baking but the easiest way to drain a coconut by far is with an electric drill. The coconut water is drained off and then boiled with sugar to create a thin syrup which will be used to soak the cake once it has cooled. If I was to do this again I would've boiled it for longer to reduce the syrup more or started with less water as I think a thicker syrup would work better - I was  bit wary of soaking the cakes too much with this lets they get too wet.  The meat of the coconut is grated - I think the hardest part of this was removing the brown outer layer first!

I have never made a white cake before, this being another American standard where the basic vanilla/unflavoured sponges seem to be divided into white and yellow cakes. White cakes contain no egg yolks and so retain a very delicate colour. The recipe follows the usual creaming method for the butter and sugar into which is beaten flour, baking powder, milk and vanilla extract. The egg whites are whisked to stiff peaks and then folded gently in. The resulting cake is light and tender though the sugar content seems a little high to me, particularly when it is going to be paired with a full coating of the frosting.

The frosting itself is made using 6 egg whites that are whisked in a bowl over boiling water with sugar , vanilla extract and cold water - here I made good use of my double boiler which keeps the temperature nice and even. I was also quite glad of my electric beaters as it takes quite a long time to get the correct consistency (stiff peaks), similar to Swiss meringue. This is then layered with the syrup and grated fresh coconut before the whole cake is coated. The end result looks a bit like a cloud.

The resulting cake is incredibly light but very sweet. I am not sure how strongly I get the coconut flavour  and would be tempted to do something to make the sponge a bit more coconutty. I also think it would be good with lime zest in the sponge and maybe on the coconut itself. The airy frosting is a nice change from heavier buttercream and doesn't weigh down the cake.  Maybe not quite good as the amazing carrot cake but quite an impressive cake none the less - and my husband certainly wolfed down his slice in record time so I am calling it a success

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