Easter Coconut Sheet Cake - Easter - Baked Ocassions

I have made this recipe before, the way that it is in the cookbook, and it was fine, but not a family favorite. This time I decided to change the coconut flavoring for vanilla flavoring in cake and icing. I did not include the coconut itself in the cake either. It works well without any coconut at all.

The icing did not ever thicken up for me this time and I'm not sure what went wrong. Sometimes the icing works for me and other times it does not. Since it did not get stiff I chose to color it with two different colors and spread it on top of the cake, swirling the colors together. I would like to know what went wrong, but I'm not sure I will ever find out. It always seems like with their icings that sometimes it works out and others it just does not.

The cake is a close-textured cake with coconut flavor even when you just use the coconut oil in it. The coconut flavor becomes more pronounced after a couple of days as well. The icing should have been light and fluffy, as it is I am not a fan of it myself. The boys enjoy all of it very well. I was a bit surprised how much they enjoyed it with the coconut flavor being very pronounced, but they don't seem to mind the flavor.

The recipe for this cake and thoughts from other bakers who made it can be found at Baked Sunday Mornings here.

Timing: Recipe States: the book did not say, My Actual Timing: 1 hour, 32 minutes
Servings: Recipe States: 24 servings, Servings For My Family: 9 servings from half a batch
Leftovers: The cake was good for a few days.


Family Ratings:
Me: I like the cake, but was not a fan of how the icing turned out this time.
Hubby: Cake is not my hubbies favorite dessert.
Big Man: He was thrilled with this cake and ate several pieces.
Bear: He liked it much better than I thought. He wouldn't have eaten it if the coconut was included.
Mr. T: Mr. T enjoyed it better than expected as well.

Will I repeat: Possibly.

What will I change: I would have to get better at making the icing for this to work.