The next few (thousand-y) sentences have nothing to do with coconut cake, skip straight to the bottom for the recipe…

People frequently ask me, “how do you do it all?” Which is a dumb question (I know I know, there’s no such thing as a dumb question?!?!) because the short answer is, “I don’t,” But what I think they ACTUALLY mean is, “how to you work, bake/cook, blog, workout, and have a happy marriage and child?”

So, here goes, this is what an avergae week day looks like:

4 am: wake up (without an alarm, I just open my eyes at this absurd hour, naturally), immediately brew coffee, read blogs, write blog posts, drink coffee, pin everything in sight.
5:30 am: workout (I rotate between a run, the gym, spin, p90x, Insanity)
6:30 am: get ready for work (I chose my outfit base don whatever is the least wrinkled)
7 am: baby wakes up and I feed her a bottle, then usually some spinach scrambled eggs and a banana.
7:45 am: leave for work (Jon stays home with Wave)
8 am: arrive at work, and do some work-ish type things (I work in administration at a college). I also eat breakfast at my desk, usually fruit. Like 5 servings of it.
11:30 am: lunch (I usually bring a salad and eat at my desk, some days I eat at our cafeteria)
4:30 pm: head home
4:45 pm: relieve my husband of ‘parenting’ duties and put on my mom hat.
5 pm: everyday at this time looks different. Somedays we go out for a casual dinner, like Cafe Rio (my favorite). Some days I make dinner (something easy, like a quinoa salad). Somedays I come home, collapse on the floor and let the baby crawl all over me and hope the dinner fairy will deliver something on our doorstep…
6:30 pm: Baby’s dinner time. She gets a bottle, then some real food. Black beans are her favorite, followed by bananas (as long as she gets to hold the ENTIRE thing herself). Spinach and oatmeal are usually a hit, if she’s in a good mood.
6:45 pm: baby’s bath time. She practically bounces out of my arm she’s so excited to get in the bath.
7 pm: baby bedtime.
8 pm: if we’re just having a mellow night watching TV, guaranteed I’ll be asleep on the couch by 8. If we waited to eat dinner until after the baby went to bed, I might stay up until 9, MAYBE! Or if I’m staying busy, by baking, then I can stay up until 9. Remember, I’ve been up since 4, so I’m pretty beat by the time the sun goes down.

The majority of my baking and blogging is usually done on the weekends. I’ll bake or cook stuff occasionally throughout the week and take pictures on the weekend. Or I’ll sometimes be able to snap a few pictures in the morning or at night, depending on the time of year and what the light is like. But in general, it all happens on the weekend. We entertain quite a bit, which is who most of the food goes to feed: our friends and family.

When I first started blogging I had no strategy, no schedule, no budget, it was just a free for all. I was just so excited to finally have a hobby I was passionate about, I didn’t care what the cost (physically and financially) was. That has all changed. Not just because now I have a kid and an unemployed husband, but because well, that just wasn’t sustainable. I don’t know what would come first; me dieing of exhaustion, or us being homeless from spending all our money on food. Neither of which are desirable. I am not always good at it, but I try and keep a blogging schedule for kitchen time, editing, writing, and then blog reading.

So that’s a little bit more about me.

Do you have any burning questions you’ve wanted to know? I’m an open book and would love to answer any question you have… I won’t even call it a dumb question (like I did above).

Ok, now to the cake. If you love coconut, just go make it. Oh ya, and it’s vegan. But if you’re not vegan, or have this weird impression that vegan = gross, let this cake convince you other wise.

I made this cake at 5 am on a Sunday morning, and took pictures around 9 am. Went to church, to lunch, took a small nap, then delivered it to a friend that afternoon around 4 pm. Since I’ve been disclosing my daily life and all, I figured you should know what my day looked like when I made this cake.

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Triple Coconut Cake (Vegan)

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup coconut oil, melted and cooled
  • 1 tbsp flax meal + 3 tbsp water
  • 1 cup coconut milk (I used light)
  • 1/3 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp almond extract
  • 3/4 cup sweetened shredded coconut, divided

Instructions

Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 8 inch round cake tin.

*You can use an 8×8 inch square pan also.

In a large bowl mix the ground flax and 3 tbsp water. Let it sit for about 5 minutes to thicken.

While the flax is thickening, melt your coconut oil in the microwave.

Mix the flours, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup shredded coconut to a medium bowl, set aside.

Add in the melted coconut oil, coconut milk, sugar, vanilla and almond extract to the ground flax. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon just until combined. Pour batter into prepared cake pan.

Sprinkle with remaining coconut.

Bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, about 30 – 35 minutes. Remove cake from pan, and finish cooling on a wire rack.

Store cake in an air tight container at room temepraturer for up to 4 days.

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http://www.fatgirltrappedinaskinnybody.com/2012/04/triple-coconut-cake-vegan/

I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen and wanted some, IMMEDIATLY! But I got it in my head that they needed to be vegan, and in a cake. So, that’s where the recipe idea came from.

Notes:
The flax meal + water is what a lot of vegans use as an egg replacer. You may be able to leave it out, but I can not guarantee what the end result will be.

Next time I’m going to sub out some of the coconut oil for applesauce to lower the fat content, just to play around and see what happens.

If you use unsweetened coconut but still want a sweet cake, add an extra 1/4 cup sugar to the cake.

I baked one batch of this cake in a silicone pan, which is what’s in the pictures. But I’ve also made it in a tin cake pan and it worked just the same. I bet they’d be great as muffins too, or as cupcakes. Add a cream cheese frosting, mmm, delicious (and not vegan, at all).

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