The recipe was pretty simple for the most part. Cutting the watermelon into cake shapes was a breeze (Xóchitl did an excellent job) as was toasting the almond slices for the top. Unfortunately though, we ran into a lot of difficulties making the vegan coconut whipped cream. So many in fact that in the end we just went with your standard hand-whipped heavy cream.
The biggest issue was that we tried to use canned coconut cream rather than refrigerated coconut milk like the recipe calls for. The coconut cream basically just got really frothy when we whipped it and didn't have the right consistency at all. So we then decided to make frosting using this recipe, adding cornstarch (a substitute for the arrowroot powder in the recipe) and lots of coconut oil. Like the recipe says, we heated the mixture up and then cooled it for about an hour. But when we tried to whip it up and apply it to the cake base, it was still much to drippy made the watermelon look as if it was rabid and frothing at the mouth. At this point, we just decided to go with the dairy whipped cream. Jenai was so disappointed to waste the coconut cream and oil, that we put it in a bowl in the fridge to deal with later. Fortunately, the mixture ended up hardening nicely, which means we may have just needed to refrigerate it longer... Anyway, it will be excellent as cubes to put into smoothies or on toast and oatmeal. Yay for healthy fats!
Coconut mishaps aside, the cake was successful as a sweet and refreshing addition to our lovely sister Zobella's 4th of July party.
Wishing you all the best!
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| The coconut cream salvation cubes |
It looked delightful! And everybody who had some was so happy. I'd call it a success.
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