Easter in Utah

It got up to 70 degrees this week. The weather has really been delightful lately. You can imagine, then, my surprise when mother nature played a little April Fool's joke on us all on Thursday.

Thankfully, the snow melts relatively quickly here and the ground was clear the next day. However, Easter had yet to be celebrated. On Easter morning we woke up to basically the same thing.

It's going to continue to snow for the next few days (it's coming down again as I type, actually). Spring is then scheduled to prevail.

Snow wasn't the only thing that was white and fluffy on Easter Sunday. I know you're all thinking about the Eater Bunny, but I'm referring to my first time making a coconut cake. As I initially looked for recipes on allrecipes.com, all I could find were variations on, "Buy a cake mix. Add coconut." I wanted to actually make the cake, so I looked on foodnetwork.com, and found Alton Brown's recipe, which started with, "Buy a coconut. Drain and reserve the water." Holy smokes! Isn't there something between lazy and insane??? Thankfully, I finally found Paula Dean's coconut cake recipe. :)

I thought it was really a cool recipe. I made a basic cake, but substituted coconut milk for regular milk. Then I made a filling of sorts out of sugar, sour cream, and shredded coconut which seeped into the cake layers overnight. Then I topped it with "7-minute frosting," which I'd never made before, and I think it has the coolest texture - reminiscent of marshmallow cream, only super glossy. Then I carefully pressed shredded coconut into the frosted cake. I have to say, I am very proud of the results.



The cake itself was very mild, but the filling added a moist tang, and the frosting was very sweet. It all balanced out very tastily. :) Thanks Paula!

Of course, the best part of both Saturday and Sunday was General Conference. I took notes during all of the sessions, and I'm trying to begin incorporating some things into my life right away. It seemed to me that the majority of the talks focused around the family and the importance of teaching the gospel to children. Despite the seriousness of his subject, I laughed the hardest during Elder Holland's talk, when he reminded us that we shouldn't even be serving tea. ;) I love the Brethren so much and I'm so grateful for their teachings. <3