Put the Lime in the Coconut

I made this cake for an aquantaince whose adult sons wanted to speak with my mom about financial consulting careers. We had them over right around her birthday so I figured, why not make a birthday cake?!

Coconut frosting going on the first layer

I decided to try my hand at a naked cake since they seem to be a trend lately. I'm not sure how I feel about them (I like icing a lot and this style does cut down on it). Also it's kind of finicky for something that looks unfinished. If I'm going to futz around with the cake then I'd rather not have it look like I didn't have time to finish frosting it. I suppose it would look slightly neater if I'd done a crumb coat as I've seen done on some naked cakes. But that's just even more futzing for an even more unfinished look.

Still the dark chocolate cake does look nice and it does present ample opportunity to balance two (or more if you make more layers) flavors of frosting. Lime and coconut in this case. Which would be the filling and which would be the coating? Well there's more coating so possibly the coconut, I like it more. But the lime contrasts so nicely with the chocolate so perhaps that... That's okay, no decision necessary. Both layers of frosting require the same amount and the strongly flavored lime and coconut buttercreams are balanced nicely.

I decided to use the coconut in the middle and the lime on top because I liked the way the flecks of lime zest looked in the creamy white buttercream. (I flavored the buttercream with lime zest and also a healthy squeeze or two of fresh lime juice. The coconut buttercream was flavored with creamed coconut, just like I did for the macaroon sandwiches and Pops' cupcakes.) Despite my reservations about the style, the flavor was amazing and the cake was a big hit!