Mama's Christmas Coconut Cake

One of my favorite Christmas foods is Christmas Coconut Cake or Grandma Ridlen’s One Egg Cake. My mother (Joy Miller) always made this cake at Christmas. She would almost never make it any other time of year, even with a lot of pleading. 

The recipe came from my mother’s mother, Margaret Ridlen, but I’m not sure of its history beyond that. I imagine that coconut was the extraordinary ingredient that made the cake so special because the rest of the ingredients would have been easily available on the farm. This cake is a favorite of my family and is one of the most special Christmas foods I make every year.

-Mary Bryan
daughter of Hollis and Joy Miller

Mama's One Egg Cake (Margaret Ridlen)

Ingredients: 

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1 egg, beaten

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup milk

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream sugar and shortening. 

Add egg and beat well. 

Sift flour and baking powder, add dash of salt.

Add flour mixture alternately with the milk to the creamed mixture. 

Add vanilla and pour into three round cake pans (lined with waxed paper). 

Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown around the edges. 

After cake has cooled, combine coconut and whipped cream and spread between layers. 

Cover entire cake with whipped cream and sprinkle coconut over the top. 

Decorate with a sprinkling of red sugar crystals. 

Best when served the second day.