Coconut Cake with Coconut Frosting

It's beautiful today.  The sun is shining, the wind is at its minimal, the temperature is bearable - most importantly, again, the sun is shining.

Good weather can really make everything better.  Over the summer in Italy, in the roasting Mediterranean heat with clear skies and sunshine, everything was okay.  It's hard to be upset when the sun's making an effort to cheer you up. 

I was out today and at point wished I smoked just so I could sit on one of the benches outside.  It's just weird to sit on a bench by yourself and not doing anything - you've got to either have a friend or a cigarette in your hand.  But it's okay, just as that idea developed in my mind, the sun, in the span of seconds, went hiding behind a swarm of clouds.  Thank you, Sun.  So no smoking for me. 

Anyway, I decided to talk about the weather today, not because I have a slight obsession with it (I check my weather app a couple of times a day.  I find it a better indicator than my window), but because coconut is summery.  Close your eyes.  Imagine heat.  The sun's comforting roasting heat on your skin.  Take a deep breath.  You can smell the sweet salt water from the ocean.  Lay back and listen, and you can the music of the waves crashing by.  What are you drinking?  You're drinking coconut water/a pina colada.

So I finally made use of my coconut butter and made a coconut cake.  The coconut butter was just for the frosting, though.  Oh just the smell of coconut makes it feel like summer.  Right now, as I look out the window from my heated room, it feels like summer. 

It's layered - so I cut the cake in half and filled the middle with frosting.

Ingredients
Cake
3 eggs
175g sugar
75ml water
200g flour
100g shredded coconut, put in a food processor to turn into flour
2 tsp baking powder
100g butter

Frosting (this recipe really is to taste, add more or less coconut butter according to your palate)
100g cream cheese
50g coconut butter
60g butter, softened
1 cup icing sugar, or to taste

Icing sugar - to dust on top

Method
Preheat oven to 180C.  Line and grease a cake tin

Beat the eggs and the sugar together with an electric beater until pale a fluffy, about 5 minutes

Add the water, and sift in the flour, coconut, and baking powder.  Fold everything together then stir in the melted butter.

Pour in cake tin and bake for 40-50 minutes or until it passes the toothpick test.

Meanwhile, make the frosting.  Melt the coconut butter over a double boiler.  Beat that with the cream cheese and butter until fluffy.  Then stir in the icing sugar. 

Take the cake out, leave to cool.  Take it out of the tin and slice it in half.  Spread with frosting, top it off with the other half of the cake, and dust it with icing sugar.