This Christmas cake will make your friends gasp: three white cake layers covered with a light snowfall of flaked coconut. This recipe came from my Great-Aunt Molly, who always used fresh coconut milk in her cake. If I'm feeling unusually energetic, I do the same (see Tip). Otherwise, I substitute coconut cream, which is a lot easier to manage. My cousin Vera Mitchell Garlough used to make this cake with her mother and sister. Vera wrote: "Mama used the standard boiled frosting from her Searchlight Cookbook, 1931 printing. The method called for boiling sugar and water until it made a thread when dripped from a spoon, then adding the very hot syrup very slowly to stiffly beaten egg whites, beating all the time. Then, we did not have the luxury of an electric mixer in our home so sister Barbara and I, while young girls, learned to make this frosting as a team. She poured while I beat, then she beat while I poured—using an old wire whisk. Somehow, it became stiff and always turned out right and we never scalded ourselves with the hot syrup. In later years, when she bought a double boiler, Mama used this standard recipe, which I use today."
