Italian Dream Cake

This gorgeous cake is a recipe I got from my new Looneyspoons cookbook. Purchased off QVC, I have been trying to work through some of the recipes as the majority of the cookbook are healthy options. The back of the book, however, has a wonderful section of "splurge" recipes and this was one of them! For me, this really is like German Chocolate Cake but without the chocolate! My husband and I are not the biggest chocolate fans, but we both like German Chocolate Cake and my husband especially loved coconut. So when I saw this recipe full of coconut, I knew I'd have to make it for my husband's 33rd birthday which was yesterday.

I urge you go to get the cookbook. My commentary on making this recipe is that you should allow yourself plenty of time to make this cake. I had a few mishaps in my day and barely finished it in time for our dinner not giving it enough time to cool. My other problem was cake pans. It calls for three 8" cake pans, but I only had 9" and no time to go buy more cake pans. I found a cake pan conversion chart online and decided to take my chances and make a two layer cake instead of a three. It worked out just fine. I just reserved a little less frosting for the filling since I only had one middle to frost.

The cake was a big hit and my husband especially was loving it. He put a note on the cake this morning that said "Save me Some" on the leftovers. This, coming from the man who does not like leftovers.

P.S. It's also very fitting that this be our go-to coconut cake over German Chocolate. I am, after all, Italian.