Stress-free Lemon Coconut Chiffon Cake

In the past, the idea of throwing a “dinner party” has, for me, usually brought on an emotional combination of excitement and anxiety. The thought of having a house full of friends is very appealing, but the anxiety surfaced when I got caught up in overthinking the menu,the pre-party cleaning, the necessary amount of plates and silverware. I had always made dinner parties into hefty affairs, where the threat of a minor imperfection haunted me for days beforehand, even well into the party itself. I think this hostess distress is fairly common, but over the past several weeks, I've come to view “dinner parties” differently. What if, instead of worrying about how the apartment looked, I worry about nothing? What if, instead of obsessing over finding the ideal recipe for a main course, I obsessed over nothing? What if, instead of expecting something to go wrong, I expected nothing?

I've found this manner of dinner parties to me much more enjoyable and gratifying. Of course, there are times for the formal and nit-picked party, but I don't see why those should be the norm when having guests over. For me, I much prefer inviting a bunch of people over, cooking a lot of good food, and seeing where the evening might lead, hoping for nothing more than an entertaining night with friends.

And since for me, baking is a stress-reliever, as opposed to a stress-inducer, I decided to try a cake that I had wanted to make for some time, but hadn't yet had the proper audience. But the warm weather and a table full of friends prompted me to open up my copy of Baking Illustrated and try the Lemon Coconut Chiffon Cake. Although I pointedly did not stress over what they may have thought of the cake, I was still pleased when they smiled at their first bites and told me that it was absolutely wonderful: light, lemony, and moist.

Lemon Coconut Chiffon Cake

From Baking Illustrated

Ingredients:
Cake:
1 ½ cups sugar
1 1/3 cups flour
½ tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
7 large eggs, 2 whole and 5 separated, room temperature
2/3 cups water
½ cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. cream of tartar
Grated zest of 2 large lemons (about 3 tbsp.)
2 tbsp. strained lemon juice
1 cup lightly packed sweetened flaked coconut
Icing:
4 tbsp. (½ stick) unsalted butter, melted
5 tbsp. lemon juice
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar

Directions:
For the cake: 1. Adjust the rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Whisk the sugar, flour, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. Whisk in the 2 whole eggs, 5 egg yolks (reserve the whites), water, oil, vanilla extract, zest, and lemon juice until the batter is just smooth.
2. Pour the reserved egg whites into another bowl and beat at low speed until foamy, about 1 minute. Add the cream of tartar and beat until the whites are very thick and stiff, just short of dry, about 10 minutes. Fold the whites into the batter.
3. Pour the batter into an ungreased large tube pan or bundt pan (9 inch diameter, 16 cup capacity). Rap the pan against the countertop a few times to rupture any air pockets.
Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 55-65 minutes. Immediately turn the cake upside down to cool, and elevate it on a wire rack so that air can flow through the pan. Let the cake cool completely.
4. To unmold, turn the pan upright and run a knife around the pan's circumference. Use a skewer to loosen the cake. Invert onto a serving plate.
For the icing: 1. Beat the butter, lemon juice, and confectioners' sugar in a medium bowl until smooth. Let it stand 1 minute, then spread on the cake.

“I'll pass on that sugar-filled morsel of heaven.”

Maybe most people who don't have the sweet tooth that I have don't use that precise phrase when turning down a dessert I've made, but that's what I hear when I encounter that bizzare type of person with the taste buds that I simply do not understand. I've heard it all before: “I'm not a big fan of desserts;” “Thanks, but sugar doesn't really do it for me;” “Sorry, but I'm not much for chocolate.” When someone explains to me that they would actually much rather make a cheese pizza than a cookie pizza for dinner, or that the souffle recipe they are trying is savory and not sweet, I politely smile and nod. My mind, though, races attempting to come up with some sort of comprehension of what it must be to walk in this persons' shoes: how does one not salivate while walking past a candy store or not spend twenty minutes deciding which pastry to order at the bakery? Well, I suppose there are many out there who look at me and wonder what, exactly, is my stomach's chocolate chip cookie capacity (answer: there is no maximum capacity for chocolate chip cookies).

Of course we all have our individual tastes, and thank goodness for that. Because of the variety of our cravings, there exist a wealth of specialized cookbooks, multiple culinary magazines, an endless listing of restaurants, and someone to make a wholesome meal of quinoa with Moroccan Winter Squash and carrot stew, while I finish it off with oatmeal cookies.

I've recently been presented with the challenge of baking something for someone who doesn't really care for sweet stuff (especially not the the degree that I do), but I was relieved to hear that he does have at least a couple of favorites that I can create from my packed baking cupboard. These cookies are, in my opinion, closer to a snack bar than a cookie, but that does not mean that they're flavorless or dull. Baking Illustrated did a wonderful job of coming up with this recipe which, to my surprise, omits cinnamon and bulks up the amount of brown sugar and oats. These last two elements, along with the nutmeg, really give the cookies a wholesome, hearty dimension. Even with the sugar amounts, these cookies are hardly sweet at all, and that could simply be remedied by a couple of stir-ins at the end: milk chocolate chips, raisins, coconut. But as given, this oatmeal cookie recipe is perfect for the baffling individual who does not prefer mountains of chocolate mixed with butter and cream and more chocolate.

Oatmeal Cookies

1 ½ c. all-purpose flour
½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. nutmeg
½ tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 c. light brown sugar
1 c. granulated sugar
2 large eggs
3 c. old-fashioned rolled oats

Adjust oven racks to low and middle positions and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt together in a medium bowl.
With an electric mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy. Add the sugars, beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Stir dry ingredients into the butter-sugar mixture with a wooden spoon. Stir in oats.
Roll the dough into 2-inch balls and place on ungreased baking sheets, spacing about two inches apart.

Bake until the cookie edges turn golden brown, 22-25 minutes, rotating the baking sheet front to back and top to bottom halfway through the baking time.
Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 2 minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.