Ambrosia Cake

Ambrosia is a Southern salad--if you can call it that--composed of mandarin oranges, pineapple, and shredded coconut. This cake takes its inspiration from the salad: angel food cake is slathered thick with pineapple curd, orange and pineapple slices, and a thick coating of coconut. Sounds great, but how do you make it? Here’s what we discovered:

Test Kitchen Discoveries

• Use your own favorite angel food cake or pick one up at the store. You will also need a cake’s worth of vanilla buttercream frosting (3 cups--a portion of which will become orange frosting with the addition of orange juice and zest) to glue the coconut onto the exterior of the cake.
• The pineapple curd takes just a couple of minutes to prepare and is pretty foolproof. One important step is combining the hot juice and egg-and-sugar mixture. The juice should be whisked in slowly and constantly to prevent any curdling.
• Cut the cake into four layers and sandwich the curd and the orange and pineapple slices in between. Use the orange-flavored frosting to adhere the orange slices, the pineapple curd to adhere the pineapple slices.