Yeah, I know. Coconut is not a Christmas-y food item. But the recipe has been calling me because I love cheesecake and I love coconut. Let's just pretend that the coconut is supposed to be snow. It can even be in celebration of our first snowfall of the season that we got this week.
Though the coconut cheesecake was not difficult, it was time consuming--and not just in baking it. It took me forever at the grocery store because it called for cream of coconut--not coconut cream and not coconut milk. Rose was very specific. Being the novice that I am, I had no idea where to find cream of coconut. First I went to the baking aisle to look by all of the evaporated milk and spices. No luck. Then the canned fruit. Next stop- soups (I thought if they have cream of chicken then maybe they have cream of coconut... you can see how lost I am). Obviously that didn't work so I tried the oriental section since there's so much coconut in thai cooking. They had coconut milk but no cream of coconut.
I asked the first store worker I found if he knew where the cream of coconut was. He seemed like he was in his mid twenties and had probably never talked to a girl before. He shyly looked at his feet while he spoke back to me. He took me to the soup aisle again and slowly read the names of every soup on the shelf. As you can see, this was taking way too much time.
I finally went to the liquor store where I found out that that's a summer item. They asked what I was needing it for anyway since it's winter time. Shut up. I like coconut.
I went to another liquor store and was finally successful. But, the cake had already taken me an hour longer than planned.
When I got home I opened my cake pan cabinet (yep... I've stocked a whole cabinet now) to get out my 8 inch spring form pan to start on the cheesecake. To my horror, it wasn't there. Anywhere. I pulled every single pan, bowl, and pot out of all of the cabinets in the kitchen and still couldn't find the silly thing. So here I am, I've spent an hour looking for cream of coconut and almost another hour searching for the stupid pan. This cake better be worth it because I have way too many finals coming up to be spending this much time making a mediocre cake.
I finally settled for the 10 inch spring form pan which was way too big, but whatever. I didn't have enough cream cheese to double the cheesecake part so I just went with the original recipe. I was ready to get started.
When I was finally ready to put it in the oven it was about 11 o'clock. I set the timer for about 50 minutes and then started to read the rest of the recipe. After it cooks, you have to turn the oven off and let it cook for an hour. Then you have to take it out of the oven and let it cool for another hour. After that hour is up, you put it in the fridge overnight. That put me finished at 1:50. I did not sign up for this....
I've been kind of bitter against the cake ever since. Maybe it's just because I didn't get to sleep as much as I wanted and sleep is absolutely necessary for me in order to keep my sanity.
The final result was good but not 2 AM bedtime good. I did remember to double the crust recipe (my cheesecake rule) which made the cake much better. The crust was made primarily from vanilla wafers, coconut, and butter which makes a delicious combination. The cake itself was very creamy (almost too creamy... I wonder if it actually cooked all the way?) but still tasty. The man at the wine store was right though.... it is a summer cake.
I took it to a function where it went over really well. People seemed to really like it and all but one piece (the piece for my roommate) got eaten. I'd say the end was a success even if it was a headache getting there.
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