What you need:
Vanilla Cake
4 eggs
1/2 cup coconut flour , sifted.
1 can coconut milk, I used light coconut milk
1- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or 1/2 teaspoon vanilla seeds stripped from vanilla bean. When I use vanilla extract I tend to use a lot. Adjust if your afraid of too much vanilla.
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup coconut oil melted. Measure the coconut oil out first and then melt in micro.
1/8 to 1/4 cup honey
Frosting
1- large heavy cream from Trader Joes should do the trick, whipped until stiff. If you want your whip cream sweet, add a spoon of honey to taste after its whipped and whip again for a few seconds. We prefer it without the honey.
Fresh strawberries, two baskets.
Before you begin:
Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees.
Grease two standard size round cake pans with coconut oil, if you can find it Nonstick Coconut Oil Spray works best.
How to do it : Gently mix the eggs then add coconut milk and vanilla. I use vanilla seeds from a wonderful little store called The Spice Merchant in Temecula, CA. The seeds are free from the bean and ready to use. They give a strong lucious vanilla flavor to baked goods. They are well worth the money. Good quality extract works beautifully too. Once the egg, coconut mixture is well combined add the coconut oil and honey. You could increase the honey if you want a sweeter cake but I think the cake is perfect with only 1/8 of a cup. I also don't like my sweets too sweet. Mix until well combined. Slowly add the coconut flour and baking soda. The batter should be like a good pancake batter and not too thin. If it is too thin add a little more coconut flour. Pour the batter evenly into the two pans and place into the oven. These cakes cook quickly. They were ready in 10 minutes in my oven. I prefer the cakes to be brown on the edges to insure firmness. The cakes themselves will be very moist to eat but firm enough to frost.
While the cakes are cooking quickly whip up the entire container of heavy cream until stiff and slice up your strawberries anyway you like. Once the cakes are cool invert one onto a platter. The cake should easily pop right out. Place about a quarter of your whipping cream on the top of one cake, gently spread over the cake and top with half the strawberries.
Place another quarter of the whip cream gently over the strawberries and spread it out carefully.
Place the remaining cake on top.
And place the remainder of your whip cream and strawberries.
As you can see the cake comes out beautifully! Find a small child to share this gorgeous cake with. Just make sure he or she belongs to you. ;)
Enjoy!! If you have problems with this recipe let me know. E-mail me or leave me a comment and I will see what I can do to make it work for you. I do plan on experimenting with coconut cream for this cake in the future.
If you want to try the Vanilla Seeds used in this recipe call The Spice Merchant in Temecula, CA at http://local.yahoo.com/info-44914791-old-town-spice-merchant-temecula . The beans are well worth the trouble. The Spice Merchant has a website but this particular gem is not available but you can order it from the store directly. www.spicemerchant.biz
Tomorrow... Roast pork tenderloin!! Yum!
