Behold, the Coco-nugget!

When my kids were young and eating their own body weight in chicken nuggets, I always bought the dinosaur shaped ones because not only were they fun, but they were also the cheapest kind when I bought the big bag at Costco. Now that Malia is a teenager, I offered to upgrade to the normal shaped nuggets. But Malia protested vehemently, claiming that the dino nuggets are the best. And so, I continue to buy the dino nuggets because Malia loves them. And I can’t really complain. I’m a middle-aged woman who likes to play with her food, creating edible art. So, who am I to judge her for loving the Jurassic version of lunch?

Several months ago, Malia discovered that you could buy throw pillows shaped like her beloved dino nuggets. As they were reasonably priced and she already knows that some much-coveted concert tickets are the bulk of her birthday present, she asked if they could please be a birthday present. I agreed that they were an affordable gift option and suggested that we go whole hog and have a birthday party with chicken nuggets for the main course and a cake covered in toasted coconut made in the shape of a dino nugget. In my mind, that was a two birds one stone kind of a situation. I could indulge her love of dino nuggets and have an opportunity to create some fun food all at the same time. While she decided the whole big birthday party thing was not tickling her fancy this year, she thought the cake was a great idea and thus, a plan was born.

This evening, we celebrated Malia’s birthday at our monthly Sunday dinner at my parents’ house. In preparation for the event, I baked a lovely coconut cake, cut it to look like a brontosaurus, filled it with raspberry filling, and generously coated it with toasted coconut. And it turned out fantastic! I really did look like Malia’s favorite meaty treat in cake form! I’ve been calling it the coco-nugget since it’s a coconut cake shaped like a chicken nugget, but Malia just calls it Jerry.

Although Malia didn’t want the consumption of Jerry to have the accoutrements of candles and singing, we sang anyway. And unfortunately, Jerry had a very bad day. We started by cutting off his head and by the time we were done, only a small portion of drumstick remained. But Jerry was absolutely delicious. The flavor reminded me of those coconut Zinger snack cakes that I used to love as a kid. Only better!

I’m actually really glad Malia let me create a crazy cake for her birthday. With most of my now grown-up kids living away from home, it has been quite a long time since I’ve had the opportunity to create a fun birthday cake. And it is something I enjoy!

International Eats-Germany

Cory and Michelle, Kevin’s brother and sister-in-law, both served missions in Germany. As such, German food turns up from time to time at family gatherings. A few years ago, when their daughter, Sharlee, was preparing to leave on her mission to Germany, they shared one of their family’s favorite German desserts: Bienenstich, or Bee Sting Cake. The cake was nice and light, not too sweet, and filled with a lovely cream. But the thing that made this cake special was the crunchy topping. Of course, Matthew and Malia were unable to taste the cake, but I did a bit of research to see if making a safe version for them would be possible. To my delight, I discovered that what makes this cake special is almonds and honey, both of which are safe for my kiddos. With a few substitutions in the cake and the pastry cream filling, an allergen free version was completely doable. 

When Malia told me she wanted to try some food from Germany, the bee sting cake immediately came to mind. I want to try some other recipes as well, but the cake was first up. Traditionally, this is a yeast raised cake. As I was looking at recipes, there were quite a few that took a shortcut and used a baking powder cake batter instead. While that definitely makes the cake much faster to create, I wanted to be as authentic as possible, so I selected a yeast raised version. 

Ironically, my nod to authenticity was what ended up shooting us in the foot. The cake looked spectacular, but most of us were a bit off put by the strong, yeasty taste of the cake. Don't get me wrong. We love bread and the wonderful flavor that yeast brings. But it was so strong that it overpowered the rest of the flavors. The vegan pastry cream turned out well, if a bit heavier than a standard one, the texture of the cake was nice and light, and the honeyed almonds on the top were a delight, but Kev, Matthew and I would have preferred the flavor of a standard cake. Malia, on the other hand, loved it as is. If I decide to try it again, which I might because I really wanted to love this cake, I will try a standard cake mixture. I have a feeling the bakery produced version we ate at Cory’s house used a standard cake recipe as well based on the flavor of the cake.

So did we love this cake? Nope. Did we like it? Sort of, some more than others. Would we try it again with some alterations? Probably. Did it look spectacular? Absolutely. 

Bee Sting Cake Rating: 3 forks

O Say Can You See

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone, but I love creating fun food for holidays. Independence Day is coming up and there is a specific patriotic cake I’ve been wanting to create for the past few years, so I decided this was the year to make it happen. I created my masterpiece last Friday when Kevin, Matthew and Malia were camping so it would be a fun surprise when we cut into it. Then I tucked it in the freezer to stay fresh for a few days. This evening we ate my creation for Family Home Evening. I love how it turned out! All it was missing was some white star sprinkles (which I could not find in a Matthew friendly version).

I’m already making plans for next year. 😉

Conquering the Coconut Cake

Of all the many things I’ve learned to cook without milk and eggs, cake has probably been the most difficult. Eggs provide the stability to cakes so baking without them provided a variety of complications. In fact, early on in my food allergy baking experience, I had several people tell me that baking large egg-free cakes wasn’t possible as they didn’t have the stable structure needed to keep the center from falling. Me, being the person I am, refused to accept that and after a good amount of trial and error, have spent many years successfully baking full-sized, multi-layer cakes that are not only lovely to look at, but wonderful to eat as well.

Last summer, I had a hankering for a good coconut cake. A few years ago, Kneaders had a coconut cake with pineapple filling that was a tropical delight. I decided I was going to recreate that lovely confection so that Matthew, who loves both coconut and pineapple, could enjoy it as well. After poring over a variety of recipes and making a number of necessary adjustments for high altitude as well as no eggs, I made my first attempt. Those poor cakes tasted lovely, but they were flat, only about an inch of height in each layer. It was more like eating a coconut pancake.

Not to be deterred, I made a second attempt and was quite hopefully as the layers baked up nice and tall and beautiful looking…right up until I pulled them out of the even and they began to cool. Then the centers sank in, a lot. We ended up with a lovely swimming pool of pineapple filling in the center of each layer.

My third attempt rose nicely and retained its shape when cool, but the cakes were quite dense, which in and of itself is not a problem. It was just not quite the fluffy, light cake I had in mind. But by then we had eaten a lot of coconut cake, so I called the attempt a partial success and moved on to other things…like baking all the goodies for the gatherings for both Malia’s baptism and Daniel’s missionary (non)farewell. But in my mind, I still had that idea of the ideal coconut cake floating in my mind and I knew I was going to need to revisit the challenge at a later date.

I has been about five months since my experimentations with coconut cake and I’ve reached the point where I was starting to crave coconut again. My birthday was a few days ago and I figured that was the perfect excuse to make a fourth attempt. This time the layers baked up nice and light, didn’t sink, and were fluffy and moist. With the addition of a creamy coconut filling, a light cream cheese frosting, and a coating of toasted coconut (all dairy free, of course), it was an absolute delight to consume. So happy birthday to me. I’ve finally conquered the coconut cake!

And as a random side note, at 46 I’m now officially closer to fifty than forty. It is weird to think about.

(I know this does not look particularly lovely, but that is because the cake is so moist that it has a tendency to stick to the knife as it is cut. A sharper knife and a chilled cake probably would have provided a prettier cut.)