fair | jenojoon

Blue Ribbon Coconut Cake

For the past few years I’ve been aiming to enter my coconut cake in the county fair. I kept missing the registration deadline because, well, I didn’t know when it was.

This year, my sweet friend emailed me the day it opened and so I registered online, paid my $1.00 (haha), and was signed up! I was so excited. I really hoped my vegan cake would take the blue ribbon! After all, the cake is always a hit at family functions where I’m the only vegan. Surely the rest of the world (or at least county) would find my cake equally delicious as my family…

I originally found a recipe for a basic white cake somewhere online but have adapted it over and over, and added my coconutty take, so that now I feel I can share it and safely say it is my own:

Blue Ribbon Coconut Cake!

Blue Ribbon Coconut Cake:

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups dry sugar of your choice

2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon fine sea salt

2 cups coconut milk (I used one 13 oz can of light coconut milk, poured it into a 2 cup measuring cup and topped it off with soymilk to equal 2 cups)

2/3 cup canola oil (or oil of your choice)

2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4-1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

sift dry ingredients together. stir in wet ingredients. pour into two oiled and floured non-stick 8 or 9 inch round pans.

bake at 350 degrees for 28-35 minutes (my oven seems to run hot so it takes the lesser amount of time). test for doneness with a toothpick.

after about 10 minutes you should be able to easily turn the cakes out of the pans.

For my fair entry I baked the cakes the day before and chilled them overnight so the frosting would stay nice and fluffy and firm. Normally I make a buttercream frosting using organic Earth Balance buttery spread, but since EB gets super soft super quick when outside of the fridge I decided to make a fluffy white frosting with shortening for the entry. I wasn’t sure how long the cake would be sitting out of the fridge.

Fluffy Coconut Frosting (adapated-ish from Better Homes & Gardens New Cook Book 12th Edition- but frosting recipes are pretty basic so make your fave!):

1 cup non-hydrogenated shortening

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon coconut extract

1 pound box of confectioner’s sugar- sifted

3-4 tablespoons soy or coconut milk

sweetened, flaked coconut

Beat the shortening till fluffy. add the extracts and beat. add the sugar a little at a time. add the milk as needed till it reaches the right consistency.

Now I frost the layers and then add a generous amount of sweetened, flaked coconut all over the top and sides. It is best to chill the cake again for at least an hour before slicing.

naked cakes

For the fair entry I only had to take half of the cake plus one slice for display. That meant I had almost a half of a cake to enjoy over the weekend! Yay!

slice o heaven!

I submitted the cake on Saturday, the judging was the next day, but I didn’t find out about results until the following Wednesday when the fair opened and I went to see for myself. Well, I didn’t win. Boo! But I was so happy to even have entered- it was a really fun experience and I loved the old-timey feel of entering a cake in a county fair! My coconut cake will always be a Blue Ribbon winner for the animals! :)

Testing 1, 2, 3

Hello friends!I’ve had a few blogs in the past- one about vegan food (when I first became vegan), one about beauty products and such, and one that was going to be about yoga but I only wrote, like, one post. I lost interest in them partly because I’m what you might call a dilettante. I dabble. I jump from interest to interest. So I decided I needed a blog to: a) Keep my projects organized and in the front of my mind, and b) Write about whatever the heck I want without feeling confined to a specific topic.

So this is the first post on ‘jenonoon, the art of fun’. Please click on the ‘about’ page to read a little more about me.

Some of the topics I’m planning to cover in the coming posts are:

My quest to become a Certified Group Exercise Instructor. My exam is Sept. 11, 2011. I’ve been studying for a few months now. I’m excited and nervous. I don’t look like a typical ‘aerobics teacher’ so I’m wondering what the other people taking the exam with me will be like. The certification process consists of a full day workshop, written exam and then a practical exam in front of everyone! I eventually hope to teach crazy, sweaty, fun, NON-intimidating cardio classes to people of all shapes, sizes, and levels of coordination.

The week after my exam I’m entering my ‘famous’ (haha) coconut cake in the county fair. I finally made the registration deadline this year! This should be fun! (how rad would it be for a vegan cake to take first prize?!)

I’m setting up a sewing/crafting studio in my home office/hobby room. I’m going to take a sewing e-course and teach myself. My mom is going to help me (she’s really good at sewing).

David and I are planning to learn to speak Danish via Rosetta Stone. David’s family is from Denmark and he knows just a little bit. We think it would be really fun to be able to speak in a sort of ‘code’ to each other.

So those are some of the things I’m going to talk about in the future. I hope that if those things seem interesting to you that you’ll follow along and maybe leave a comment or two!Thank you for reading!

xoxo jenojoon