Happy Birthday to Me! {Coconut Cake}

Today is my birthday.  My favorite day of the year. Minus maybe Thanksgiving. I really do love Thanksgiving.  But I digress. 

Every year for my birthday I ask for four things from Mr. J.

1. I want a cake
2. I want a birthday card with something written in it from him.
3. I don't want to make dinner.
4. I don't want to do any dishes, laundry, chores, etc. 

Easy enough right. Well this year, we are busy with the house, packing, and work.  My birthday is probably not going to be the most relaxing of days. So instead of Mr. J going out and buying me a cake...he always gets a really good one from bakery right next door. I thought I would make one myself. After all I do love to bake. What could be a better present to myself? And yes, I buy myself lots of presents in September. Hello Sephora!

As soon as I had the idea to make myself a cake I knew I wanted coconut.  After spending hours (yes, hours) on Pinterest I had a list of about twenty coconut cakes to pick from. Piecing a bit from most of the recipes I came up with this....

Happy Birthday to me!

Coconut Cake

by Emily Morris

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 60 minutes

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Ingredients (serves 12)

For the Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1½ tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 eggs (at room temperature)
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 1 tsp coconut extract
• 3½ oz sweetened, shredded coconut

For the Glaze

• 2 tbsp unsweetened coconut milk
• 1/2 tsp coconut extract
• 1/2 – 1 cup confectioners sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and lightly flour a 9X13 inch cake pan. 

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

In a separate bowl, use an electric mixer to cream the butter and sugar until fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add in eggs, one at a time, and mix well.

Stir in the milk, coconut extract and shredded coconut. Finally, add the flour, baking powder and salt mixture, and stir to combine.

Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until golden brown, about 1 hour.

Meanwhile, prepare the glaze. Whisk together the coconut milk, coconut extract and confectioner’s sugar until smooth, adding more sugar as needed to thicken.

Cool cake in pan for 5-10 minutes before removing. Drizzle with glaze while cake is still warm.

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