I love looking back at recipes that have been part of every holiday season I can remember.

And for me, that is a coconut cake.

When I was little, my grandmother was the baker, but over the years, it became my responsibility and privilege to make the cake for the family, and it is now my pleasure to share my recipe with you.

[bright music] So when it comes to making a cake, one of the things that you can do that ensures it will turn out as good as can be is to be careful when you do your measurements.

Rather than dipping your measuring cup, take a spoon and actually spoon the flour into the measuring cup.

This means that you're not accidentally cramming too much flour in there and adding more to the recipe than you thought.

Then just take a straight edge, level it off, and there you have exactly the amount you need.

The next step is going to be adding leavening.

Now for this cake, that is a combination of baking powder and salt.

And then I'm gonna whisk my dry ingredients to make sure that that leavening is evenly distributed all the way through.

So for the next step, I'm going to be using a mixer.

So the first thing I'm gonna put in here is some butter.

So I'm gonna drop my butter in my mixer, turn on the mixer for a few seconds to make sure that that butter is good and creamy before I add anything else.

So when you have your butter nice and creamy, you're going to gradually add your sugar.

I'm gonna do it about a quarter of a cup at a time, making sure that the mixture turns out really smooth and creamy.

Once all of your sugar's in there, this is when you're gonna crank up the machine to high speed and let it whirl around for four minutes.

It's tempting to say, "Oh, it doesn't need that long," but you want to put air in your batter now.

We're gonna let the machine do the work for four full minutes.

[mixer whirring] So once the sugar and the butter are thick and creamy, it'll feel like cake frosting between your fingers, and then you know it's time to add the eggs.

A recipe will always say to add the eggs one at a time so that each one can blend in.

[bright music] So after each time you add an egg, you're gonna turn your mixer back on to medium speed and you wanna blend until you cannot see the egg in the batter anymore.

[mixer whirring] And that's it.

That's four eggs.

So now it's time to add our liquid ingredient and our flour.

This cake calls for whole milk, which I have here, and I'm also gonna put in the flavorings.

I have three for this recipe.

One is vanilla, the second is a little bit of almond extract, and the third thing is a little bit of coconut extract.

That's gonna boost the coconut flavor in the cake layers to echo what's gonna be going on in the frosting.

So just to make sure it mixes evenly, I like to pour my extracts into the milk.

And now I am going to alternately add my dry ingredients with my milk.

So I'm gonna add the flour mixture in thirds, alternating with half of the milk.

So you always start with dry and you end with dry to make sure you have a creamy, well-combined batter.

And you wanna make sure that every bit is going into the batter.

One more turn of the mixer.

[mixer whirs] And that's it.

Once your batter is smooth, your batter is finished.

It is ready to go in our cake pans.

So here are my cake pans, which I have already greased and floured.

Now all I have to do is to put my batter in and you want to equally divide it between the pans.

And then I'm going to take my spatula and spread it out toward the edges.

The heat of the oven is gonna give you some spreading also.

I like to give it a little bit of a start at being even in the pans before it goes in the oven.

So now these are ready to go in the oven, a preheated oven.

So your oven is hot and it's ready to put the pans in.

[quiet bright music] So the next step in our cake is going to be this delicious cream cheese buttercream.

The first thing I'm gonna add to my mixer is cream cheese, a whole block of it.

And then I'm gonna add some butter and we're going to cream this together until it's smooth.

Add cream of coconut, and we're gonna put in a good amount of it just to add a little bit more flavor.

And speaking of flavor, I'm gonna put in a couple of drops of my coconut extract.

And now a little bit more mixing until it's smooth.

And the very last thing we have to add is some powdered sugar.

Now I do sift this, so I'm going to start out by putting about half of my powdered sugar, get it good and smooth, and then, we're gonna eyeball the rest.

How do you know when you've added enough powdered sugar?

It'll look just like cake frosting.

As you can tell, the cake layers are out of the oven, and I let them cool in the pan for a few minutes and then I turned them out on a wire rack so that they could cool completely.

So I put my first layer on here.

I'm using a little bit of coconut milk to add that last layer of flavor.

And now I'm going to take some of our wonderful buttercream and I'm gonna add enough to cover the top of the cake.

I'm going to add a good layer of my fresh unsweetened coconut in the middle, and then I'm gonna put the flaked coconut on the outside.

And then our next layer goes on top.

Now you want to press it just a little bit to help it adhere, and then just cover the outside with your buttercream.

I usually start on the sides, and don't worry too much about whether it's looking a little bit messy at this point.

You just want to make sure that all of the cake is covered.

Some bakers call this a skim coat or a crumb coat.

Some people that do home improvement would say, we're just priming the walls now.

So now that the cake is frosted, while the frosting is still soft and a little bit tacky, we're going to add the coconut.

You know, nothing works better than your fingers.

Take coconut and press it onto the side and go all the way around the edge, and once you have the sides covered, the rest can go on top.

And that's it.

Now comes the easiest and maybe the hardest part, which is to cover it and put it in the refrigerator for one, maybe two days, so that everything can settle in.

[bright music] And now it's time for the big reveal.

Let's cut into this.

You know, the wonderful Julia Child once said that any party without a cake was just a meeting.

So I think, to ensure the success of your next party, you should make this coconut cake.

It's time for me to take a bite.

[buoyant music] You know, this cake is tender, the layers are moist, there is coconut in three different ways throughout it.

It is a winner.

You should make this.

It's easy, it's impressive, and then you get to eat cake.

[bright music]