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Howard Johnson’s Coconut Loaf Cake

07.08.2015 by J. Doe // 1 Comment

It is one of the enduring ironies of my life that although my initial experience with the stock market – choosing Howard Johnson for a school assignment in a year when the stock sank and the company was sold – was negative, I eventually found my way into a reasonably successful career working in the industry.

That said, I work with people who choose stocks, and don’t actually choose them myself.

The only reason I recognized the Howard Johnson company name at all was that my mother and I ate there, exactly once, when she took me there for a very big treat. The ice cream!

I’m not sure I ever saw one of Howard Johnson’s famous bright orange roofs, since the one we went to was in the ground floor of a Manhattan building. The restaurant seemed a bit beat-up, and the waitress was not friendly like the waitress at the VFW fish fry in Wisconsin, who was also the school crossing guard and admired my pigtails while I played tic-tac-toe with my grandfather, who never seemed to win no matter how hard he tried or how many hints I gave him.  My mother and I sat in a booth and ate our meals, and then had ice cream, which was probably okay but not special enough that I remember it. I liked the ice cream from the Baskin-Robbins near where we lived; one flavor had pieces of frozen bubble gum in it, and at Halloween, they had licorice-flavored black ice cream that tasted awful but disgusted my mother so much that I looked forward to ordering it every autumn.

If it were not for my fifth-grade school project, I don’t think I’d remember Howard Johnson at all, but as it happens, I remember it well: An inauspicious beginning to my future career. It makes me smile, and so it was that when a recipe for the original Coconut Loaf Cake sold at Howard Johnson appeared on the King Arthur Flour blog, well, I had some coconut and some free time and plenty of nostalgia, so I made it.

It was superb: A buttery loaf cake, dense but not heavy,  with a hint of coconut. I didn’t include any additional coconut flavoring, so the flavor is there, but only from the coconut – not overpowering at all. The frosting is just divine with a bit of tang to it, and should not be omitted – there isn’t enough coconut without it. Cool the cake completely before frosting it (I mean it!) and then press in as much shredded coconut as the frosting will hold. Use all the frosting, and be generous with the coconut. Plan to be sticky. Lick fingers thoroughly when done.

The Child was less impressed than I was, explaining to me that she would like it, if she liked coconut. I thought she did like coconut; at least, I can’t come up with another reason why Kate Smith’s Coconut Squares are her most-frequently requested cookie. Apparently, that was a few years ago and I need to keep up.

It was because of her that I discovered one of the nicest features of this cake: It refrigerates really well. This should be surprising, since the original was apparently sold frozen, then thawed and served at home. The cake kept really well in the fridge and tasted divine served cold. It’s an ideal summer cake in this regard – a sweet, cold treat for a hot summer day.

Howard Johnson Coconut Cake

Howard Johnson's Coconut Loaf Cake
 
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Author: adapted from the King Arthur Flour website
Ingredients
Cake
  • ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 1¼ cups sugar
  • 5 large eggs
  • 1¼ teaspoons salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
  • ½ cup heavy cream
  • ⅔ cup sweetened flaked coconut
Frosting
  • ½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 cup cream cheese, at room temperature
  • 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
  • ¾ to 1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan.
  2. Make the cake: In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter at medium speed for about 10 seconds, then gradually add the sugar. Beat for 2 to 3 minutes, stopping once to scrape down the sides of the bowl, until the mixture is fluffy.
  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating each in completely before adding the next. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl, and beat briefly, just until combined, then add the salt, baking powder, and vanilla.
  4. Add the flour to the bowl in three portions, alternating with the cream. Beat at low speed, just to combine, after each addition.
  5. Stir in the flaked coconut, and scoop the batter into the prepared loaf pan.
  6. Bake the cake for about 70 to 75 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center/top of the loaf comes out clean. Tent it gently with aluminum foil if it appears to be getting too brown.
  7. Remove the cake from the oven, let it cool in the pan for a couple of minutes, then turn it out onto a rack. Cool completely.
  8. Make the frosting: Mix the butter and cream cheese at low speed, until thoroughly combined, then beat in the sugar and salt until smooth.
  9. Place the cake on a large piece of waxed paper. Spread the frosting all over the cake. Pat the flaked coconut onto the frosting. Plan to get sticky, or use a piece of wax paper. Be generous with the coconut.
  10. Cake keeps well in the refrigerator, and may be frozen.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // baking, coconut, vintage recipes

Toasted Coconut Waffles

04.26.2014 by J. Doe // 1 Comment

The Child bounced back from her Canada trip and its fallout. At first it went slowly – she couldn’t find a way to sit next to the people she wanted to sit with at lunch, sometimes leaving the cafeteria in frustration. But one day, some other girls leave the cafeteria with her, and after a while, still other girls save seats for her. She musters up the courage to invite a new girl over, and the invitation is accepted, followed by another, until finally, she starts to receive invitations too, and life settles back into a normal teenage girl routine of sleepovers, trips to the mall, and entire evenings spent on the phone with the same people she spent the entire day with.

She starts to nibble at bacon, and then to talk about chicken nuggets – long shunned, but once the staple of her diet – and one day announces that she just really wants some chicken nuggets and that’s really all there is to it and can we please go to Red Robin right now?

I’m so startled by this development that I take her, and as we have dinner, she talks about all the foods she misses: chicken nuggets, chili, turkey sandwiches and spaghetti with real meatballs, do I know how to make those?

No, I tell her, but I can learn.

I never minded her refusal to eat meat, it was the refusal to eat nearly everything that was a hardship to me. Everything was too spicy, or tasted funny, or she just didn’t like it for reasons that she couldn’t explain; worse, sometimes she’d raise my hopes by liking something the first time I made it but then not liking it the next time. The few things she did seem to like, she’d get bored with after a while, though not usually as quickly as I got bored with them and never waiting until I’d found a replacement for the rejected food.

Suddenly, she’s eating it all.

Sometimes, she even has seconds.

I don’t even know where to begin – my cookbooks are all new again, no longer full of mostly things she won’t eat, but potentially things she might enjoy. At the moment, like most of America, she’s obsessed with bacon, so my first efforts are focused on breakfast, although breakfast could happen at any time of day.

I found these Toasted Coconut Waffles when I was on the hunt for a way to use up some extra buttermilk I had bought (for a sherbet recipe that went oddly astray), and since I love all things coconut and The Child – for the moment, at least – loves anything with a side of bacon, I made these for an Easter breakfast. They mix up in a snap and are light and fluffy and coconutty, yet crispy, not soggy or heavy the way some waffles can be. The recipe makes a good amount, and we had easily 8-10 waffles, so we had some extra to freeze and snack on.

I was worried that the maple syrup might not be a good mix with the coconut, but I was very wrong – the two flavors complemented each other just perfectly, and the waffles taste a bit incomplete without syrup. Definitely scatter some extra coconut on top, the added crunch is wonderful.

One note: I didn’t use the virgin coconut oil called for in the recipe, as it was twice the price of regular coconut oil, and much as I love coconut oil, it’s spendy enough as it is, thank you very much. The waffles have plenty of coconut flavor without the added cost.

Toasted Coconut Waffles

 

Toasted Coconut Waffles
 
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Author: Elmwood Cafe, Berkeley, CA, via Bon Appetit
Serves: 6
Ingredients
  • 1½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut
  • 1½ cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ cup cornstarch
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 cup whole milk
  • ⅔ cup virgin coconut oil, melted
  • ¼ cup sugar
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400°. Toast coconut on a rimmed baking sheet until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Let cool.
  2. Whisk flour, cornstarch, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. Whisk eggs, buttermilk, milk, oil, and sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients. Mix in ¾ cup coconut; set aside remaining coconut.
  3. Heat a waffle iron until very hot. Coat with nonstick spray. Working in batches, cook waffles until golden brown. Serve topped with butter, syrup, and reserved coconut.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // breakfast, coconut

Coconut-Lime Bars

03.14.2013 by J. Doe // 4 Comments

Of course he did it, says my father. Of course he lied.

I have stopped looking for the reasons for all of these things that make no sense, but my father says I don’t have to look in this case, because it’s obvious. He did it to sap your energy; he did it to divert your attention.

A whole lot of other things that didn’t quite make sense before suddenly snap into focus.

The Cleaning Lady goes about her work in a companionable, quiet house.

I made some cookies the day before The Cleaning Lady came. I made them mostly because I had a refrigerator full of limes … and yes, there’s a reason I had all those limes. I was supposed to bring punch to large event, and found a recipe in a cookbook for Blackberry Lime Punch. This sounded great except that it was very labor intensive and after I’d spent a half hour laboriously juicing blackberries, I noticed that the recipe made only eight glasses of punch – while I was trying to fill the punch cups of fifty people or more.

So I went with Plan B, courtesy of  Bettycrocker.com, which worked out well, if unexceptional – but afterward, found myself with a refrigerator full of limes.

A little bit of hunting through cookbooks turned up a recipe for Coconut-Lime Bars from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. I love limes and these are basically updated lemon bars, only the nice creamy-tart layer is now lime with a nice crunchy topping of coconut. It seemed like a little bit of heaven to me, but The Child thought otherwise.

She pronounced it “not a cookie,” and refused to eat it any more. Nor would she take the bars to school. “My friends won’t like them. They like regular cookies.”

Fine. I’ll start my diet next week, then.

I offer a cookie to The Cleaning Lady, and we eat some together, standing in the kitchen. She pronounces them delicious. Coconut is one of her favorite things, she says.

And I believe her.

IMG_8974Brighten

 

Coconut-Lime Bars
 
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Author: adapted from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman
Ingredients
  • 1 stick unsalted butter, softened, plus a little for greasing the pan.
  • 1¾ c. sugar
  • pinch salt
  • 1 c. plus 3 tbsp. all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp grated lime zest
  • 3 eggs
  • ¼ c. lime juice
  • ½ tsp. baking soda
  • ¾ c. shredded coconut
Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 350* F. Grease an 8- or 9-inch square baking pan.
  2. Use an electric mixer to cream the butter with ¼ cup of the sugar and the salt. Stir in 1 cup of the flour and the zest. This mixture will be dry; press it into the greased pan and bake for 20 minutes, no longer; it should just be turning golden. Remove from the oven and cool slightly.
  3. Beat together the eggs, lime juice, and remaining 1½ cups sugar until lightened and thick. Mix in the remaining 3 tablespoons flour and the baking soda. Pour over the crust, sprinkle with the coconut, and bake until firm on the edges but still a little soft and jiggly in the middle, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely before cutting into squares. Serve immediately or store, covered and refrigerated, for up to 2 days.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // coconut, cookies, lime

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