Coconut Tea Cake -- Tuesdays with Dorie

Time for Tuesdays with Dorie! Our treat today is Coconut Tea Cake, picked for us to try by Carmen of Carmen Cooks, thank you Carmen. I adore coconut and also love tea cakes, slightly dryer than your traditional cake, with a dense crumb and soft but not too moist texture. Just perfect for snacking on a slice with a cup of your favorite tea.

I decided to bake this in my Nordic Ware Chrysanthemum Bundt Pan. I've only baked a few other cakes in this pan, and have to admit it is usually a little tough for me to judge how much batter goes in. You want to be able to see the details after baking but not overflow while baking. Dorie takes care of that guessing problem with this recipe and specifically calls for a 10-12 cup bundt pan, this is a 10 cup pan (it says so right on it) so even though it was on the smaller side of the suggested pans, I put the whole amount of batter in and hoped for the best.

Success! No overflow, yay! As you can see I did bake this on an insulated baking sheet, I know in the directions Dorie says not to bake this on a sheet because you want the hot air to circulate through the center of the cake, I went against the directions because I know that these darker pans tend to bake faster and I do not like my cake edges extra dark and dry. Also because this is a black pan I turned the oven temperature down to 325, and set my oven timer to check the cake right at one hour, and right at one hour this cake was perfectly done.

It released nicely from the pan, which I sprayed with Pam for Baking, any little imperfections were from the way it baked, not from sticking. It looked like the perfect springtime cake for sipping tea with. I let if cool for about 4 hours before slicing and the inside was perfectly done, a nice tender and close-knit crumb. The first flavor I noticed was the coconut milk, followed by a nice little crunch of coconut. I couldn't detect the rum right away but I'm sure it helped to balance the other flavors.

Two out of three little taste testers liked this one, husband was a no try because of the coconut, and I personally thought it was great and fit the title of Tea Cake perfectly. I'm looking forward to some with some strawberry compote and whipped cream later, yum :)