Try as I might, I can’t trace the origin of lumberjack cake or why it is called thus. I can only think that – at a push – the shredded coconut on the topping is supposed to look vaguely like wood chips on top of a tree stump. That’s a large push.
I pushed it even further. My topping didn’t want to stay pale because, embarrassingly, it turns out that I’m an ignorant and don’t know the difference between desiccated and shredded coconut. So it serves me damn right that my cake a/ not only doesn’t know where it originates from but /b does not fulfill my pushed lumberjack-ey criterion either.
The difference is in the thickness of the flakes (and of course that’s another form of coconut flesh) – using larger bits would stop my cake topping from getting all brown. But I have never come across shredded coconut in stores – only desiccated. Having looked it up, several coconutty sites firmly advised I could use the other in recipes that call for one. Isn’t there’s an awful lot of rubbish information out there?
So I did, so it turned out to be the one exception, so the topping turned all brown. But it also turned caramelized, gooey and delightful so I’m not in the end convinced I did it so very wrong.
And what if doesn’t resemble a freshly felled tree stump; who cares? Not a lumberjack – he’s okay!