Coconut Chiffon Bundt Cake with Coconut Frosting

Coconut Chiffon Bundt Cake with Coconut Frosting 

I hate the s word. Not the one that some of you are thinking of (I have thought that word in relation to this word), no this is another 4 letter word. Snow. I hate it. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest where a lot of people ski, and when I say a lot of people my school had ski fridays. They would take a big bus up to Snoqualmie and go skiing, every friday for 12 weeks. The kids that stayed behind got to watch movies, bake cookies, learn computer etc. Every 2 hours we would switch to a new activity. It was a no brainer for me, I chose to not go skiing.

I love to cross country ski and am an adequate down hill skier and snowboarder. I had to be since all my friends wanted to go on ski trips during the winter. While snow is pretty, I hate, hate to be cold. When you ski you are in this in between weird world where your sweating, but also it's freezing. If you take off your coat you get cold, since your working out if the jacket stays on you sweat. While some women can stay attractive while skiing, I don't. I don't just sweat, I sweat buckets. After a 2 hour cross country work out I look like a bucket of water has been dumped on my head.

So while I grew up around ski and snow lovers I would be happy if it just stayed away. My poor in-laws live in the mountains and it snows all winter. Not just inches, but feet. My mother-in-law is already worried about Thanksgiving and the weather. It always seems to snow here around the holidays, we had our first snow the week of Halloween (which is way too early for my tastes). So my mother-in-law and I are both hopping the snow that is supposed to start tomorrow stays away. The s word can stay where it belongs, out of my vocabulary.

During the holiday months I bake frequently. I seem to turn to sugary foods when the weather gets colder. The summer months I turn towards fruit and light foods, but during the winter I love cakes and cookies. Luckily I also love my treadmill (not really, but I still do it). Last week I tried a new recipe for Gluten Free Coconut Bundt Cake with Coconut Frosting from the December 2013 issue of Food and Wine magazine.

Coconut Chiffon Bundt Cake with Coconut Frosting 

This recipe has 10 ingredients. It takes 2 hours 30 minutes of total time, 30 minutes of which is active and makes 12 servings. I did make a few significant changes to the original recipe. First, I used white rice flour to replace the cake flour. Since I eat gluten free I try to change regular recipes to be gluten free. Many specifically gluten free recipes are too dry or just plain bad. Make sure to adequately grease and dust the pan. The cake tends to stick a little to the pan. I found that my total baking time was slightly longer than suggested, by approximately 10-15 minutes.

Huntington Museum of Art

My kids and I really liked this recipe. It was light and worked well being made gluten free. The coconut milk made for a delicious, moist texture and would be a nice replacement for people that can't have milk. This cake would be great for a party, it is beautiful on the plate and would serve 16 people if the slices were made thin.

For the recipe go to Coconut Chiffon Bundt Cake with Coconut Frosting.