This was coconut layer cake with passion fruit, tangerine and lemon curd.
When I was looking for a recipe to use
homemade shredded coconuts, I found the
recipe of Ambrosia Cake by the New York Times. It's a cake made with oranges, coconuts, and marshmallows, which I have never heard and thought it sounded nice. I reduced the ingredients for cakes to make two 8 inch cakes instead of two 9 inch cakes. The cake was beautifully done!
I was a little concerned about filling. The filling of the recipe was clementine and lemon curd. I usually don't like curd because it's often too eggy for me. The recipe called for several eggs, which sounded too much. Meanwhile I had a jar of Rare Bird's passion fruit curd that I should use soon. Rare Bird Preserves'
Blackberry Lime Curd was surprisingly pretty good and didn't taste eggy. So, I hoped the passion fruit curd would be as good as the blackberry lime curd. I tasted it a little bit. It was a little bit eggy but ok, I thought.
However, I was making four layer cakes. The little jar of curd won't fill three surfaces. I quickly made tangerine and lemon curd with just one egg and chilled it. Well, I guess curd needs enough egg and enough butter to have a pudding-like consistency that Rare Bird's passion fruit curd had. My tangerine and lemon curd didn't. It was runny even after well-chilled. Using some gelatin powder to set curd was my idea, but unfortunately I didn't have it in hand at that time. I hoped the mixture of Rare Bird's passion fruit curd and my runny curd would become spreadable but not-so-runny curd. Well, it didn't work like that.
The mixed curd was still very runny. Layering cakes simply pushed the curb out more and more.
I couldn't stop finishing the cake anyway. While the curd was escaping between cakes, I started covering the cake with homemade marshmallow icing. Aha! The icing somewhat managed to seal the curd leak.
I skipped fresh clementine wedges between cake layers and top, which could have made the cake more messy. Without fresh clementine, the cake won't be Ambrosia anymore. I accepted it. Perhaps, it wasn't when I decided to use passion fruit curd anyway. Generously sprinkling lightly-toasted shredded coconuts over the cake, and the cake was completed!
It looked pretty. Nobody knew the runny curd incident.
The result was ok. With all the time and efforts, I could make better desserts, though. After all, I am simply not a fan of curd. I should avoid any recipe with curd in the future.
