Coconut Almond Cake with Blackberry Lime Curd

It is embarassing how long I’ve had this post started as a draft. To give you a hint, it was before I even started blogging for Yankee Magazine. You see, my good friend Aimee had started working at Yankee as an assistant editor. She sent me one of their latest recipe book-a-zines to take a look at. As usual, I was instantly drawn in by the layer cake in the issue.

This specific cake was served at cookbook author Amy Traverso’s wedding. In my mind a wedding cake is such a special treat. If this was served at Amy’s wedding, it had to be amazing.

Now I’m not going to lie, this cake was somewhat finicky to deal with. More so than the average layer cake. I blame myself for the majority of the issues I had with the cake though. For starters, I didn’t give myself enough time. When I make layer cakes, I try to bake the layers in advance so they’re nice and cool when I need to assemble the cake. Somehow, time got away from me that weekend, and I was rushing.

Second, the blackberry lime curd filling was a bit runny. Again, had I been planning better, I would have made it a day or two in advance so it would have had plenty of time to completely cool and set up. But I didn’t. Shame on me.

The other mistake I made was not using a frosting dam to hold the filling in. I usually pipe a thick line of frosting around the edge of the cake layer (like this) prior to spreading the filling. This will help prevent the filling from spreading out of the layers as you stack them. I was seriously off my game that day.

Because of these mistakes, as I started frosting the cake, even after applying a crumb coat, some of the dark pink filling started coming through the frosting. I proceeded to just keep slapping on more frosting, which I then covered with shredded coconut to hide any blemishes.

Now I have to admit, I’m being hard on myself. If you ask anyone who ate this cake, they never would have guessed that I had so many issues with it. The cake is very moist with a great texture from the ground up almonds and shredded coconut. And that filling? Out of control. The frosting and coconut on the outside of the cake tie everything together. It’s no wonder Amy Traverso served this cake at her wedding. If I were getting married again, I might do the same.

The next time you have a special occasion, whether it’s a wedding, Mother’s Day, Easter, or any other get together, make this cake. Your friends and family will thank you. But be sure to learn from my mistakes. Plan ahead and keep your head on straight. Following simple cake baking best practices will result in a less frustrating experience then I had with this cake…

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