Damon Lee Fowler

Dec 08, 2017 8:11 AM EST

My mother made the same cake in York. Kept the double boiler just for the 7 minute icing.

- SAW

Dec 08, 2017 8:16 AM EST

I think at one point it was actually pretty common across upstate South Carolina and North-west Georgia. Both my grandmothers made it and I've since run into folks from North Georgia and Upstate Carolina who had memories of the same cake in their families. Thank you so much for reading and sharing!

- Damon Fowler

Dec 08, 2017 2:28 PM EST

My mother and both grandmothers made fresh coconut cake for Christmas in Middle Tennessee. My mother's cake was a white cake and she used the yolks for boiled custard. My mother's boiled custard was thin and we drank it with whipped cream on the top. My father's family made a cake with more whites than yolks, and their boiled custard was thick enough to eat with a spoon. I can remember seeing my mother's knuckles bleeding where she grated the coconut by hand. My mother poured the the coconut milk over the top of the cake and it all soaked into the cake making it very moist. I so wish I had a piece of her cake, with a glass of boiled custard. No egg nog for us!

- Virginia Clifford

Dec 08, 2017 3:21 PM EST

Virginia, that warms my heart! My family did drinking custard, too. When they were in Kentucky while Dad was in seminary, the folks knew my older brother, then a toddler, was especially fond of it, and some of the ladies would leave a quart jar of warm custard between the back screen and door on Sunday mornings. Later, my mother would make it as a surprise evening snack for us. We'd spoon and drink it from cups while it was still almost too hot to eat. It was a wonder!

My grandmother grated the coconut by putting it through a meat grinder, so she never had bleeding knuckles. I'd love to have just one more piece of her cake.

- Damon Fowler