Recently I’ve started cooking with coconut milk and love the richness and flavor that it gives everything I end up making.  My friends had mentioned that they actually bake with coconut milk by replacing dairy milk with coconut milk.

This weekend S-Man and I had a blast going to see Alicia Keys at Rogers Arena (she is amazing!!!) on Friday night and then on Saturday I met up with one of my girlfriends and we checked out Gastown by window shopping in all the great furniture stores and of course making a stop at Community Thrift & Vintage (if you have been reading my blog since it started, you’ll know it’s one of my favorite thrift shops in all of Vancouver) and then drinks at Chambar, well Sunday rolled around and all both S-Man and I felt like doing was lazing around at home, watching Netflix and eating cake.  So I started browsing epicurious and pinterest but every recipe I looked at called for dairy milk, which I didn’t have.  Then, I remembered how my baking friends had success using coconut milk instead of dairy milk soooo, I decided to try a basic white cake with coconut milk and came up with this recipe which was really quite fantastic.

Coconut Lemon Cream Cake

Makes one – 9 inch layered cake

The Cake:

• 1 cup unsalted butter
• 1 cup white granulated sugar
• 8 egg yolks
• 3/4 cups coconut milk
• 2 cups white multi-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Juice and zest of 1/2 a lemon
• 1/4 cup toasted coconut flakes

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together until it resembles a very thick cream and it is a silky white/yellow color (very cold butter will take approximately 10 minutes on high-speed with an kitchen-aid mixer).
3. While the butter and sugar are blending, mix the flour, baking powder and salt together in a separate bowl and set aside.
4. Separate the eggs and add each egg yolk one at a time as the butter and sugar continues to cream (reserve the egg whites for a future use).
5. Once the butter, sugar and egg yolks are very well blended, alternately add the flour mixture and coconut milk in 1/3rd portions and blend all the ingredients together.  Add the juice and zest of the lemon and continue to blend until there are no lumps left from the flour.
6. Pour the cake batter into a 9-inch springform pan with a removable bottom and bake for approximately 45-50 minutes (electric oven).  Check to see if the cake is done by piercing through with a sharp knife and if the knife comes out clean, it is ready to cool.  Cool the cake in the pan for about 15 minutes and then remove the sides of the springform pan.
7. Cut the cake in half (horizontally) and continue to cool on a cookie sheet sitting on a cooling rack.

• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1/3 cup white granulated sugar

1. Combine the lemon juice and granulated sugar in a saucepan and heat over medium-high heat until the sugar is dissolved, continue to cook over the heat for about 10 minutes so the flavors with meld.
2. Drizzle the lemon glaze over the cake layers and allow the cake to fully cool (approximately 1 hour).

The Coconut Lemon Cream:

• 1 cup cream cheese
• 1 chilled can of coconut milk (not mixed), remove the fat at the top that settles on the can, it will be a little less than the first top half of the can, this is the part you will use.
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• Juice of 1 lemon

1. Whip all the ingredients together until it turns the consistency of whipped cream.

Spread the Coconut Lemon Cream between the layers and then on the top layer.  Sprinkle the toasted coconut flakes on the top and then….. Enjoy!!!