My Great Grandmother's Buttermilk Lemon Coconut Cake

Total Time: 1 hr 40 mins Preparation Time: 40 mins Cook Time: 1 hr

Ingredients

• Servings: 16
• 1 1/2 cups shortening
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoon lemon extract
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 1/2-3 cups milk
• 3 cups grated coconut (unsweetened)
• 1 1/2 cups marshmallows (her recipe says "handful")
• 1 teaspoon almond extract (my mom and i added this)

Recipe

• 1 preheat oven to 300. grease and flour 3 9" cake pans. sift together flour and salt.
• 2 cream shortening and sugar until fluffy.
• 3 beat in eggs one at a time until combined.
• 4 add buttermilk, soda, and flavoring.
• 5 add flour mixture gradually until combined. this is similar to a pound cake batter.
• 6 pour into cake pans at bake for 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean.
• 7 for icing:.
• 8 cook sugar, milk, coconut, marshmallows over a double boiler until smooth. note: as it is hard to find unsweeted coconut, i've used sweeted and reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup. fold in almond extract. icing will be fairly runny--it's supposed to seep into the cake and run off the sides. if you want it to be thicker, add more marshmallows.
• 9 ice layers and top of cake while still hot. i poke holes in the layers with a toothpick so that the icing seeps down into the cake.
• 10 cover and refrigerate overnight. no cheating! you must serve it after it's been refrigerated, and serve it cold - it's best that way.
• 11 enjoy!