Coconut Cake... soft, tender, like it should be!

We celebrated Miggity's 30th birthday this past Saturday and of course, I indulged in some cake baking. The coconut cake recipe was from the Williams Sonoma "Cake" book. The cake was great... but DO NOT use the vanilla buttercream recipe. The technique (though probably authentic) is a disaster for today's day and age. Luckily, I did back it up with fresh vanilla buttercream with a recipe more suited for us today. Enjoy.

Cake: 2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup coconut milk (you can add a bit extra if you want since this is really light)
1 cup unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup shredded coconut
Vanilla Buttercream Icing: 3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 to 2 tablespoons whipping cream
Preheat oven to 350F. Line 2 round cake pans with parchment.
Mix flour, salt, baking powder and set aside.
In another bowl, combine coconut milk and vanilla essence and set aside.
Using a mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add sugar till mixture is pale and fluffy.
Add eggs one by one. Add dry mixture in 3 batches to this on medium-low, alternating with coconut milk mixture in 2 batches (Start with dry and end with dry and beat until just combined).
Pour batter into pans and stick in for 25 minutes.
For the frosting, beat together sugar and butter for 3 minutes. Add vanilla essence and whipping cream for one more minute. Voila!