Coconut Tea Cake

Looks moist in the middle, doesn't it?

This week Carmen of Carmen Cooks selected Dorie’s Coconut Tea Cake for the TWD Bakers to bake. Visit Carmen Cooks – her food photos are brilliant! Her Dulce de Leche Duos look fabulous! If mine turned out like hers, I’d bake them again for sure!
I was dubious about baking the Coconut Tea Cake. I’m not a fan of coconut but lately don’t seem to mind it as much. It calls for unsweetened coconut milk and amazingly, coconut milk can be found at your local grocery store!
I decided to try the Coconut Lime Tea Cake in the Playing Around section of Dorie’s book. While I was slowly pouring the coconut milk/butter mixture into the batter I remembered that I had bought 2 limes for this cake. Argh! I wasn’t able to blend the lime zest with the sugar obviously but I was able to squeeze the juice out of one of the limes and add it to the batter just in time. Yeesh. No rum to be had in the house so an alcohol-free cake this time.

It sure looks nice, maybe a little too golden?

Can you spot the crack? I hid it pretty well!

I set the timer for 60 minutes, at the end of which the knife came out clean. After cooling 10 minutes on the rack, flipped the bundt pan over and chaos! The pan slipped from my hand, crashed onto the counter and cracked the cake (and scared Marshall who ran into the bedroom upon hearing the crash)! Rats! I was so mad at myself, but naturally I ended up blaming the cake. HAH! I wasn’t going to glaze the cake, that’ll teach it to slip out of my hands. The Beau didn’t think that was such a good idea, although he wasn’t disagreeing with me since I was still mad at that point. After I had cooled down for 10 minutes, I decided to make a glaze to try to cover the crack. I mixed some of the leftover coconut milk and some lime juice with powdered sugar and glazed the cake. It looked soo pretty, how could I hold a grudge against the cake?

The coconut milk/lime juice glaze was soo tasty!

But then I tried to slice a piece of cake and had some misgivings. It was kind of hard to slice the cake and that’s not a good sign is it? The crust was a bit crusty although the inside wasn’t. I sliced thecracked part for the Beau and I to try and we both thought it was a bit dry. We both liked the flavor though. He’s taking it to work today for his co-workers to have with their morning coffee instead of their afternoon tea. I sliced the whole cake and the other pieces, while still crusty on the outside, felt more moist on the inside. I’m hoping that the piece we ate was more dry because of the crack in the cake, at least that’s the reason I keep telling myself…
Check out the other TWD Bakers to see how their Coconut Tea Cakes turned out! Seems like some came out dry and others came out moist. Some used cardamom too! And for heaven’s sake already, buy the book!
UPDATE: The Beau’s co-workers ate it all up! They also thought it was moist too! Phew! I saved another piece for the Beau and I to have for dessert last night and it was moister than our first piece! I’d make this again, only this time I’d remember to rub the lime zest with the sugar and add some to the glaze as well!

Last Week: Dulce de Leche Duos
Next Week: Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake