Paula Deen's Coconut Cake

For my Grandmother's 84th birthday, I made her favorite cake, Paula Deen's Coconut Cake.  I never made this recipe before and I was worried it might be complicated, but it turned out it was actually pretty easy.  There are a few steps involved and it was a little time consuming, but worth all the effort.

 
First, you make her Basic 1-2-3-4 Cake recipe, but substitute coconut milk for regular milk.  It took me a little while to figure out the coconut milk was located in the Latin food section of the grocery store.  I whipped up the cake quickly and into the oven all three layers went.

  While the cake was baking I prepared the filling, which consisted of sugar, sour cream, milk and sweetened coconut.  After the three layers of cake were finished I poked holes in the cakes and spread the filling on top of each layer as I stacked the three layers together.

The next step was to make the 7 minute icing.  It requires using a double boiler and beating the icing with an electric mixture for 7 minutes.  This was the first time I attempted to make icing this way and it turned out just right and it smelled delicious.

 Finally, I frosted the entire cake and I did not spend too much time trying to be neat since I knew it was all going to be covered in coconut shortly.  A bag of sweetened coconut later and some birthday candles for decoration and it was finished.  It looked so pretty and I hoped it tasted just as good.  It is always a little nerve-wracking to serve something you never made before.

The cake was a success!  Everyone loved it and it was an instant classic that I will definitely be making again.  The cake was very moist and the icing had a perfectly sweet taste and consistency.  Thanks to Paula Deen for the fabulous recipe!