Before quarantine, I had a real meal-planning groove going. Sunday afternoons I would sit with all of my magazines and recipe emails and pick out three or four things that I wanted to make, planning on one night of carryout (in the Before Times, I didn’t cook on Fridays) and perhaps one night of leftovers. Mondays were designated work-from-home days at my company, so after my noon call I’d head to the store and get everything I needed for the week.
I enjoyed this process, and I suppose I could still do it, but I prefer to avoid going to the store whenever possible. So we do things differently now: we switched carryout nights to mid-week and instead of a fancy-ish Sunday dinner we’ve been doing fancy-ish Monday dinners. Last night we had chicken piccata and mushroom risotto with coconut cake for dessert.
This particular coconut cake is a ridiculous thing to make when baking ingredients are scarce and you are trying to avoid extra trips to the store. As cakes go, it costs a small fortune; you’ll use an entire pound of butter and a half-dozen eggs, not to mention milk, cream cheese, and the specialty ingredients like coconut milk powder and coconut flavoring. Putting it together is also kind of a pain, and I was very concerned the centers of the cakes were underbaked, but in the end: worth it.
I really like making cakes. They’re dumb to make for two people. Not that there is anything wrong with eating cake every night for a week but at some point, the cake starts to get a little stale and it’s a matter of diminishing returns. But in this particular time in history there is nothing like losing yourself in the fussiness of baking and frosting a cake for a few hours.
I have a cheap plastic turntable that I use to frost cakes. It’s designed to spin really easily so you can turn it around and frost the sides of your cake, and I really love it. For one thing, you do get a better finished result, but also it’s completely mesmerizing. It’s possible I spent a good ten minutes longer than necessary practically giving my cake hospital corners but it was very relaxing. And when you’re done: cake!