So, I've always heard people rave about how "unsweet" and light IMBC and SMBC are, but had yet to try it ...
My husband had his company's one year anniversary this weekend. A little over a year ago, when the housing market was taking a deep horrible nose dive and the company he was working for dissolved their mortgage branch, DH's marketing department was left high and dry; although he was offered several jobs at the time, my job has a horrifying schedule (officially 80 hours/week, unofficially it's easily 100 on-site, plus work from home) and he knew he was going to need a little more flexibility in order to continue to give our kiddos as much quality time and care as we try to give. So he took a huge gutsy plunge, and started his own company! One year later, bless him, the thing's going strong, and we haven't missed a beat with the munchkins.
So I baked him a cake this weekend to celebrate (sayhellojana's DELICIOUSLY SCRUMPTIOUS coconut cake), complete with the IMBC she recommends. Well, while I'm still far from being able to claim that I can actually decorate proficiently with IMBC, it was the most wonderful melt-in-your-mouth experience I've had in quite awhile! So, that being said, I am proud to say I've joined to Goodheaventhisissheerbliss club.

-Emi.

Sounds like things are going well for you! I've never tried IMBC. I really need to give it a go. Thanks for the cake and icing recommendation! Could you email it to me or PM me with it. I can't seem to find it on the recipe page. I even went to the member list and looked up her name and there was only one peanut butter recipe there.

Thanks!!

Hey - I have a great IMBC recipe from McCalls. Once i found it i was a convert to... except i recently found sometimes you really need a good crusting buttercream to create the desired effect.

With so many awesome recipe's on this site - it is hard to pick one to try - but this recommondation gets me inspired!

I would love the recipe, if you don't mind pm'ing me. I too am very afraid of IMBC.

thanks in advance,

cakeymom

Absolutely, yes! Jana gave me permission to share her recipe, so here goes ... per Jana:


Coconut Cake Recipe:

4 egg whites
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
1 ½ cups sugar
4 ½ tablespoons corn starch
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 cup cake flour
3 ½ baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¾ cups vegetable oil
¾ cups coconut milk*
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
3 teaspoon coconut extract
½ teaspoon lemon juice

Whip egg whites and cream of tartar to stiff peaks. Add sugar to egg mixture. Set aside. Sift corn starch, flours, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Mix in oil, milk, extracts and lemon juice until batter is smooth. Fold in egg white mixture - use your hands, not a kitchen aid! Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minuets for an 8'' round. This is a very soft cake.

*Check the ingredients on the back of the can. Make sure it is real coconut milk, not water flavored with coconut. It won't bake correctly if it's not the real stuff.

I use IMBC with coconut extract as opposed to powdered sugar bc on this cake. It's so smooth, you wont regret it.

I can't stress enough the importance of good coconut milk. It completely changes the way the cake bakes up.
The filling recipe is kind of difficult to explain. I had to take approximate measures when I entered it in the fair, so these amounts should be fairly accurate. You have to stir it the whole time and watch it. Add the cornstarch mixture a little at a time and taste it along the way to make sure it is ok. It will thicken a bit more when it cools. If you want a more "coconut-y" flavor you can add a few drops of coconut flavor.

Coconut Filling

1 ¼ cup coconut milk
½ cup sweetened flaked coconut
½ cup evaporated milk
1/3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon plus 3 teaspoon corn starch
¼ cup water.

Dissolve corn starch in water. Mix all other ingredients together in a saucepan and cook on low heat until sugar dissolves. Add cornstarch mixture slowly and stir as you do so. Add until it is thick. Cool completely.

Almost forgot! The IMBC recipe I used was the one in the recipe section of CC, "Shirley's method".

Holy cow, I can't wait for dessert time! This whole thing is making my mouth water just thinking about it!!

Hope you guys enjoy her award-winning (county fair, I believe) recipe as much as I did!!!

-Emi.

WOW I can't get over the fact that you work 100+ hours per week, then work more from home, have three children, and do cakes. There are 168 hours in a week. Say 100 of them are spent working and 42 hours are spent sleeping (if you only get 6 hrs of sleep a night). That leaves 26 hours with your family. Subtract time spent shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, paying bills, doing additional work stuff from home, commuting, taking the kids to/from school and sports/activities, helping them with homework, etc. ...when on earth do you find time to do cakes?????????


Congrats to hubby for a successful first year, and welcome to the dangerously delightful world of loving IMBC!

Your Grinch cake is amazing, BTW!

Thanks so much, Cakepro! Actually, I only really cook about once a month. I do HUGE batches of several dishes, and freeze them into daily portions, knowing that I don't want to spend too much time in the kitchen in a normal day, since I don't get time with my kids otherwise. My husband pops the thing in the oven a couple of hours before dinner (works from home, remember?), and we save a ton of time. I love to cook, and I'm not getting my daily cooking fix, but I don't mind given the circumstances. The same thing goes for shopping, I only do it every couple of weeks, and when we do it, we make it a whole family expedition. We get the kids a smoothie and a muffin from the bakery section, and walk around the store as something fun to do, not as "shopping".It takes a lot of planning, but we make it work as best we can.
And as far as sleep goes, that's where the numbers make up for themselves. the 100 hours/week come from being on call a few times per week. Call is 30 hours in the hospital, during which you usually don't sleep (or you might get one or two hours), and then I go home and don't sleep until the night. So I still get about six hours per night when I am home, but in your calculations, that frees up some extra hours, since there's less sleep involved, and "work" and "sleep" sometimes overlap .

Anyhow! WAY too much explanation!

That's great to have such structure! It sounds like it works well for your family.

That's an excellent idea about cooking in huge batches and freezing for individual meals. I really should start doing that too.

No problem, cylstrial! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did ... I added the Loranne coconut oil like she recommended, and it worked phenomenally well. Yum!

My recipe is being called Deliciously Scrumptious? Cool! I hope ya'll enjoy it. I tweaked it a trillion times. Coconut cake is my absolute favorite cake to eat.

And I love IMBC too. I use "Classic Vanilla Buttercream" from the food network website and always find it tasty and not too difficult to decorate with

This sounds like a dream...can you recommend a brand of coconut milk?

Also, how much Lorann's would you say is suitable?

I like Thai Kitchen coconut milk (full fat) because most stores carry it. I usually just use coconut extract from the grocery store, but if you have loranne I would say 1/4 teaspoon would do about right.

Ok...thanks!

I have used two separate brands (don't know them off the top of my head, I'm sorry!), and both worked ... beware, however, that this is a very very moist cake, and definitely not one fit for carving, for example. Delicious! For my IMBC, I used three dropperfuls from the itty bitty little coconut oil bottle (how's that for unscientific? I have no idea how much is in there, but it hardly put a dent in my dram). Perhaps Jana has more insight into the brand she uses? But there's my two cents!

Cool...thanks.

I love Toba Garrett's French Vanilla Buttercream. I don't think it is an actual meringe buttercream since there are no eggs. You cook the sugar and milk/cream (don't have the recipe in front of me right now) to make a custard and chill that. Then add lots of butter, etc. It is my daughter's favorite--mine too. If anyone would like the recipe, PM me, since you cannot find this on the internet--I know, I tried.

You will love it!

Sheryl

I looked at Shirley's method of IMBC, and I noticed it has orange flavoring in it. Is there an alternative, because I wouldn't like orange flavored icing.

I use Shirley's and just change the orange extract to whatever I want-sometimes just vanilla, other times I add Kahlua or amaretto. (The orange seems too sweet to me)

I've never used IMBC, but I think I will try now.

I would love to try IMBC. Can it be used as a filling for a cake that needs to be left out of the fridge for awhile (e.g., a fondant-covered cake)?

That's a good question. I always have a hard time knowing which frostings have to be refrigerated and which don't. I don't have much refrigerator space for cakes. If they have egg in them I definately am afraid to leave unrefrigerated. Is there any rule of thumb on this?

No rule of thumb that I'm aware of, just the opinion of the decorator. I frost my cakes the day before they will be eaten and leave them at room temp with no problems. However, I'd be a bit more concerned if it was going to sit out for more than two or three days. Again, it's up to the decorator. I know there are others that disagree with my opinion because there are raw eggs in IMBC, but I like to think the eggs get cooked a bit with the hot sugar.

Actually, there are pretty good guidelines regarding food safety you can look up - for that matter, IMBC can be a food safety issue because of the raw egg whites to begin with. Salmonella is an issue, and there is no way to protect yourself against it if you are not using pasteurized egg whites or meringue powder (the hot syrup doesn't elevate the temperature of the eggs enough to remove the risk). I used meringue powder instead of egg whites (I've got to ... I'm a pediatrician, remember? ), and even though it has butter in it, the butter can be left out for "short" periods of time (leaving it out for a few days while you decorate is fine from a health standpoint, butter just won't last through a longer process on a dummy, for example).
The main thing is not to let ourselves get caught up in a "It hasn't happened to me personally, so it's got to be safe" situation ... I know plenty of people who have driven while intoxicated and managed to stay out of accidents, but that doesn't mean drunk driving is safe.

Sorry! Very long response to your question! Hope it helps! And with regards to the orange flavoring, that was the flavoring that I substituted for coconut flavoring in my version of the IMBC the other day.

-Emi.

Thanks for posting this recipe (the cake and Shirley's IMBC)! My husband's office had their annual "chili cookoff" yesterday. Usually he makes a chili to enter, but this year did not have time to come up with a new recipe. I saw your post and wanted to try the recipe, but didn't want to keep it here at home, so I decided to make it to send to work with my husband. I made a double batch and made the cake and cupcakes, so I could keep a few at home to try (I filled the cupcakes as well).

When my husband walked in the door last night he was all smiles. He said "Good news! Everyone loved your cake!" Then he hands me a gift card and says "They loved it so much that some of the guys voted for your cake instead of voting for chili, and you won a prize!" (The cake was NOT on the voting ballot.) They were asking when am I going to open up a bakery (I've sent other baked goods in the past, so they are starting to know that I do decorated cookies and cakes).

So, thanks again, it was a hit! (Oh, I did cover the entire cake with coconut. One person said it was the prettiest cake he's ever seen; I thought it was my worst looking cake ever!)

Mm. Love coconut cake. gonna have to try this! Thanks!

this recipe sounded sooo good and i wanted to give it a try..
i am in the middle of making this cake right now .
but i am not sure what i have done wrong.

when i mix the milk and oil into the flour and other dry ingredients its not really making a batter it is more like dough..very very very dry almost like cookie dough
are these the right quantities for the liquid 3/4cup of oil and 3/4 cup of milk é
may be i am missing something ... help !!!!!
looks like i need to add more liquid to make it into more of a batter