TOASTED!! COCONUT!!

one ingredient,
amplified,
and repeated,
over and over and over and over.
that's a thing that i do when i do things.
y'know why?
yeah, you do-
because too much is the right amount!
sidebar:
too much wind can go F* itself to death, though.
as i type away,
it's brutally and awfully and excruciatingly windy outside,
and,
it's also aggressively arctic in the temperature department.
on the real,
-18F is an A*-hole quantity of degrees.
....yuck.
i can't wait to drag my very unhappy, very cold terrier
up and down these damned hills this morning,
as we both suffer the ills and chills of nature's gross gusts.
ugh.
should be tons of fun.....
ANYway,
one ingredient,
in excess, to really boost the flavor, and enhance the experience of eating.
yup.
that's what i want.
and in this instance, it's toasted coconut.
neighbors,
the toast factor changes EVERYthing.
...and that's no joke.
i made a cake.
that's nothing new.
i used coconut.
again, that's a thing that happens often.
but,
i toasted every last little bit of it.
THERE IT IS.
that's the new hottness that transformed an undoubtedly dope design
into a transcendent trip to the tippity-top of true taste triumph.
WORD.
check the teleport:

TOASTED COCONUT CAKE!!!!
it's pretty effin' good,
and it's very effin' soft.
you want a slice?
you'd better hurry up and get over here.
it's going quickly into the mouths of a great many men and women
much less worthy than you.
ha!
or,
you could make it yourself.
here's what i did.
feel free to disregard as much as you care to-
-
*
-
1 stick vegan butter;
1 cup raw (demerara) sugar;
1/2 cup crushed toasted coconut;
1 cup toasted medium flake unsweetened coconut;
1.2 tsp salt;
2 tsp vanilla.
...
smash and mash and moosh that all up,m
and whisk in:
3/4 cup applesauce;
1/4 cup non-dairy yogurt.
...
now, fold in:
1 1/2 cups flour;
1/2 cup coconut flour;
2 tsp bakey powpow;
1 tsp bakey soda;
1/4 cup tapioca;
1/2 cup non-dairy milk.
-
whisk as much air in there as you can,
and pour it into a 9" springform pan, greased and floured,
to bake for 45 minutes at 350F.
here's the thing, though, dudes-
top the batter with a half a cup of coconut,
and a handful of raw sugar sprankles.
yeah!!
the sugar halfway caramelizes,
and the oven toasts the coconut up molto nicey-nice.
c'mon.
that's good stuff.
the crumb is so juicy, and so buttery and so soft,
you'll swear it's made of otherworldy druid spells or something.
no, for real.
it's got that sponge-bounce texture that resists a squish,
but dissolves on the tongue.
it's super good,
and it's going fast, like i told you-
oh, word?
well, yeah,
obvi, the frosting game doesn't slouch either.
*
1/4 cup toasted coconut, pulverized into paste in a spice grinder,
added to 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar;
whipped up hard and high with 3 T vegan butts;
1/2 tsp vanilla;
and a splash of non-dairy milk.......
golden magical mastery is right there,
ready and willing to be squeezed and swirled on top of some mutha-'ucking CAKE.
expert.
***********
i'm really not kidding about this wind, folks.
if it was a person,
i'd already be in jail for a brutal and soullessly violent physical assault on it.
all sorts of sh!t s whipping around here,
and leaves from last autumn are being unearthed
and deposited directly in front of my door,
a reminder of how much raking i disregarded last year,
and a preview of just how much groundskeeping fun i still have ahead of me.
hmmmm?
well, actually, yes.
every tree around me is tall and old and stiff as heck,
so i DO worry they're waiting to snap in half,
topple over, and attack the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress.
the F*ing wind, man,
it does uncool things like that all the time.
i'm telling you-
the elements are taking a perfectly good month,
and turning it into tornado is terrible,
whipped and whirling and devilishly dervish and deviant in all the worst ways.
it's all really happening, kids.
and most of that is ruined because of the fluidity and rapidity
of air's movement through time and space.
if you're the type to like the wind?
i hope a kraken eats your dumb sailboat.
i hope a tree eats your dumb kite.
i hope your windmill spins so fast it breaks loose,
and sawblades through all your stuff.
real talk.
if you like the wind,
you're wrong.
sorry, but that's the truth.
wind is the worst;
never quiet, never soft.....