welcome to the real world

7.21.16 – Pina Colada Cake

“If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.” -John von Neumann

Welcome to the real world. <— words heard innumerable times by innumerable former-students in the two months (exactly, in my case) since college graduations everywhere. I’m really not sure what people mean when they tell you that. From some would-be well-wishers you get a sense of genuine excitement that you are still young and have yet to have all of the prosaic life experiences they have. And then from the other, slightly more cynical crowd, you get a very poorly disguised chance to say,”You haven’t really been alive and college is laughably easy compared to the rest of life and everything you’ve been doing was actually worthless up until this point.”

Thank you. I am now even more excited than before.

Mostly, though, I think people want to revel in the memories of their own college graduation and the esprit de corps that they’ve been there too. That – and the somehow distinctly American go-west-young-man feeling you get when the last party is over and your roommates leave and you think with blurry-eyed optimism that it really will be okay. (Maybe.)

Anyway – we graduated (Kate, Jake, Dawson, and me) on May 21, and it was good. We’ve all gone our separate ways for the time being: Dawson to dental school (she starts Monday); Kate back to Kansas then to Denver in September for work at PWC; Jake to grad school at NC State; and me to Wilmington, for work. I’m hoping to keep up this blog as a compendium of life’s little adventures, featuring mostly food and some select other travels/projects/glimpses of chaos.

First order of business: make this cake. I made it up for graduation by adapting several recipes, and it was good. July is hot. This cake is cold. And is has coconut…….’nuff said.

coconut cake — (No, this picture isn’t mine. I stole it. But it is very accurate of the finished product. And no, I didn’t add cherries because I think they’re nasty.)

For the Cake:

1 box butter cake mix, plus ingredients to make cake
1 15-ounce can cream of coconut (NOT coconut milk) – this can usually be found in the drinks/mixers aisle of your local grocery store
1 15.25-ounce can crushed pineapple, drained and juice reserved

For the Topping:

2 cups heavy whipping cream
2 to 4 tablespoons powdered sugar (sweeten to your preference)
1 teaspoon coconut extract
shredded coconut and maraschino cherries, to garnish if desired

Prepare and bake cake in a 9×13 pan according to package directions. While your cake is baking, mix together the reserved pineapple juice, sweetened condensed milk and cream of coconut until smooth.
Immediately after removing your cake from the oven, use the end of a wooden spoon to poke holes all over the top of the cake. Pour the milk mixture over the top of the warm cake, making sure to get it down into the holes. The cake will appear very saturated, but that’s okay. Evenly spread the reserved crushed pineapple all over thetop. Cover the cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

To make the topping:

Beat cream vigorously by hand with a whisk or using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer. When the cream starts to thicken, add in the powdered sugar and coconut extract. Continue beating until soft peaks form. You may also use Cool Whip if you wish. Garnish cake with shredded coconut and maraschino cherries.
Keep cake covered in refrigerator for up to 3 days.