Coconut Layer Cake with Swiss Meringue Frosting

I'm in the mood of making layer cakes. Lemon Mascarpone Layer Cake that I baked last week was excellent. There's always a reason why we need to chill certain kind of cakes before cutting and serve it. After an overnight chilling, the flavor of the lemon curd has intensely blended with the sponge cakes and it tasted great. I definitely will bake that again.

A few days ago, my girlfriends and I went to Ben's at BSC for lunch and we also ordered some desserts. One of them was Coconut Cakes and I thought of baking a coconut cake for the weekend. No....I'm not trying to replicate Ben's Coconut Cake, instead I'm doing my Williams Sonoma book's Coconut Layer Cake.

Coconut Cake

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 large eggs, separated, at room temperature

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup coconut extract /coconut milk

1 cup loosely packed sweetened coconut

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 160C(fan forced). Grease two 9-inch cake pan and line with a parchment round.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. In a bowl of a stand mixer or you can also use a handheld mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light in color and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla. Remove the bowl from the mixer. 
4. Using a silicone spatula, gently fold in 1/3 of the flour mixture until almost incorporated. Fold in half of the coconut milk, and then fold in another third of the flour, followed by the other half of the coconut milk. Add the remaining flour and fold the ingredients until fully incorporated, and try not to overwork the batter or else the cake will be tough.
5. In a clean mixing bowl of a stand mixer, whip the egg whites on medium-high speed until medium peaks form. Using a silicone spatula, fold in the egg whites into the batter, and then fold in the coconut.
6. Divide the batter evenly between the pans. Bake for 25 minutes. Transfer the cakes to a wire rack and let cool in the pans for 3 minutes. Invert the pans onto the wire rack and lift of the pans. Peel of the parchment paper. Let cool completely.

Swiss Meringue Frosting

2 large egg whites, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup
1/8 cream of tartar
2 tbsp water
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups loosely packed sweetened coconut
Lemon Curd

Instructions:

1. Set a saucepan filled with 1 inch water over a medium heat and bring to a simmer.
2. Off the heat, combine egg, sugar, corn syrup, cream of tartar, water and lemon juice into a large heat resistant mixing bowl and whisk until blended. 
3. Set the mixing bowl over the saucepan and whisk constantly while frequently scraping the edges until the mixture begin to thicken, about 10 minutes (an instant thermometer will register 75C). 
4. Remove from heat, using a hand mixer or stand mixer fitted with whip attachment, beat the mixture at high speed until stiff and glossy, about 7 minutes. Using a silicone spatula, fold in the vanilla and half of the coconut.

Assemble the cake:

1. Lay one cake layer cut side-up on a cake stand. Tuck in strips of baking paper under the cake edges to keep the plate clean.
2. With a metal frosting spatula, evenly spread some lemon curd on top of the cake. Place a second cake layer on top of the curd.
3. Using a frosting spatula, frost the sides and top of the cake with the frosting. Sprinkle the remaining coconut all over the cake.