Coconut Cream Cake (From The Reptile Room)

I have at times toyed with the idea of trying to lean into the whole “The Batter Thickens” theme and connecting my bakes to books I’ve read. Sort of like what Binging with Babish does with food from tv and movies. And I have done it a few times – namely with Percy Jackson. But it would be too constricting if I tried to do that exclusively. (Also, plenty of other people do that.) And, many books have nothing interesting going on with food. However, there are occasionally food scenes in books that stick with you for decades. I am, of course, referring to the coconut cake that the Baudelaires eat in Uncle Monty’s in the second Series of Unfortunate Events book: The Reptile Room.

I remember it because it was one of the brief glimmers of happiness for them. The trials of the first book are done, and their Uncle Monty seems so jolly. He gives them big slices of coconut cake with milk when they arrive – despite the fact that their approach to his house smelled badly of horseradish.

There really must be something about the way Lemony Snicket describes senses in those books. Because I can still remember the descriptions from those books, even though it must have been 15 years or more since I last read them. Most memorably, in The Grim Grotto, there’s a scene where this mold spore gets into the youngest’s throat, and they have to find the antidote in order to save her. The way it was described, paired with the time in my life when I read it, meant that I imagined the feeling of the mold spore to feel a lot like strep throat.

So much so that one day during my freshman year of college, I woke up with a very specific type of sore throat and that scene from the book popped into my mind, for the first time in 15 years. I immediately thought, “this has got to be strep throat,” because the sensory association was so strong.

It did not end up being strep throat, but the memory still persisted! The details in that book series are really something else, the way they stick with you. Or perhaps it was just the vibrancy of my imagination at the age of 8.

Another example? I was researching other coconut cream cakes for this recipe, and found that Lemony Snicket posted a recipe for one here. I was just going to follow that, but I had in my head that the book described a bodacious three layer cake?

The description was not for a three layer cake. The book only says: “[Uncle Monty], Mr. Poe, and the Baudelaire orphans were sitting around a bright green table, each with a slice of Uncle Monty’s cake. Both the kitchen and the cake were still warm from baking. The cake was a magnificent thing, rich and creamy with the perfect amount of coconut.”

But then, I opened up my old copy and found that there is an illustration of a three layer cake on the corner of the page. So I was not mis-remembering! Like I said: it is amazing what can stick in your head from the stories that shape you.

So, I went a different route than the Lemony Snicket recipe. That one leaned heavily on the cream element, since it had a soak. But… I had to make it three layers! And I was going to use a Cake Doctor-style recipe, but then I thought… would Uncle Monty use a cake mix? No. So, the “cream” element of the coconut cream cake became the cream cheese frosting. I think it really worked. Especially if you’re generous with the frosting.

If you like coconut… you’ll love this cake. Consider it a Series of Fortunate Bites.

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