Coconut Pound Cake

I went back to the church kitchen this week. Not as director—not ready to stand in front of a cooking team and give orders, not ready to be Mother Simms Who Runs Things—but as a helper. Sister Agnes had the Tuesday dinner organized the way she's had it all summer, and I called her Monday and said, "Agnes, I'd like to come tomorrow. I'd like to help." There was a small silence on the phone, the kind that contains emotion being managed, and then she said, "Loretta, I will set a pot on the back burner with your name on it."

I arrived at three o'clock. The New Hope AME fellowship hall kitchen smells the same it always has: the ancient steam smell of the industrial dishwasher, the sweetness of decades of pound cake baked in those ovens, the iron smell of the big pots that have cooked ten thousand suppers. I stood in the doorway and breathed it in and it was like breathing my own history—every Tuesday dinner since 1994, every funeral repast, every homecoming. The kitchen knows me. I know the kitchen. We recognized each other like family after a long absence: carefully, with relief.

Sister Agnes handed me a spoon and pointed me toward a pot of collard greens and said, "They need stirring." I stirred. I did not lead. I did not reorganize the prep station the way I absolutely would have if I'd been in charge—Agnes keeps the cutting boards in the wrong place and the salt is too far from the stove and the big spoons are in a drawer instead of the jar by the range, but I said nothing, because sometimes you have to let people run their own kitchen even when they're doing it slightly wrong. I stirred. I seasoned when asked. I set tables. I served plates when the guests arrived.

Several regulars came to hug me. "Mother Simms." "Loretta." "We missed you." One woman held my hand and said, "The greens aren't the same without you," and I said, "They'll be the same again soon," and I meant it. I could feel it—the stirring feeling of being useful, of having my hands on a pot that feeds people. Not whole. But right. The rightness of purpose, which is its own kind of healing. Its own kind of grace.

When I stepped into that kitchen on Tuesday, one of the first things that found me was the smell of pound cake—not one baking that day, but every one that ever had, sweet and buttery and soaked into the walls after thirty years. It is the smell of New Hope, the smell of every homecoming Sunday and every repast table I have ever set. If I could bottle what it felt like to walk back through that door, it would smell exactly like this Coconut Pound Cake: familiar, unhurried, and just a little richer than you remembered.

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 1 hour 20 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 40 minutes | Servings: 16

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
6 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup full-fat sour cream
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp coconut extract
1 1/4 cups sweetened shredded coconut, divided
Nonstick baking spray with flour, for the pan

Instructions

Prepare the oven and pan. Preheat your oven to 325°F. Generously coat a 12-cup bundt pan or 10-inch tube pan with nonstick baking spray, making sure to reach all the ridges.
Whisk the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl using a stand mixer or hand mixer on medium-high speed, beat the softened butter and sugar together for 5 to 6 minutes until the mixture is very pale, light, and fluffy. Do not rush this step—it builds the structure of your cake.
Add the eggs. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well for about 30 seconds after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Mix in the wet flavors. Beat in the sour cream, vanilla extract, and coconut extract on low speed until just combined.
Incorporate the flour. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing only until no dry streaks remain. Do not overmix.
Fold in the coconut. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in 1 cup of the shredded coconut until evenly distributed throughout the batter.
Fill the pan and top. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with your spatula. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup shredded coconut evenly over the surface.
Bake. Bake for 75 to 80 minutes, until the top is deep golden brown and a long wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. If the top begins to brown too quickly after 50 minutes, tent loosely with foil.
Cool and unmold. Allow the cake to cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a thin knife around the center tube and outer edges, then invert onto the rack and lift the pan away. Cool completely before slicing, at least 1 hour.

Nutrition (per serving)

Coconut Pound Cake — The Sweetness That Never Left