It isn’t as impressive as a regal three-layer-made-from-scratch-with-a-grated-fresh-coconut-cooked-frosting served on a lead crystal cake stand, but it’s a good cake and one you will want to try, and, I suspect, use often for family dinners.
“It” is Kim Mathis’s Coconut Ice Box Cake, an easy-to-make and good-tasting dessert. Kim is a 10-year member of Holly Springs Baptist Church in Inman. A large church both in physical size and in membership, the church averages around 450 in Sunday morning worship service.
Around 1800, a group of worshipers in the area met under a brush arbor. The church has grown a lot since then and its official organization in 1804 with 56 members. They constructed a log building for their house of worship located near a spring surrounded by holly trees, hence the name. Other church buildings followed. The current sanctuary was built in 1955 and renovated in 1998. Timothy Clark is the current pastor.
Kim and her family are involved in several areas of the church. Her husband Steve, who owns and operates Mathis Tire Service in Inman, is a deacon. Kim has worked with the Department of Social Services, primarily with the foster children program for 25 years or so. She and Steve both attend Sunday school and much of the time she helps with the infants in the nursery.
Kim and Steve have two children. Their son Brandon, 23, is a senior at the University of South Carolina with a major in business. Their daughter Haley, 19, is a cosmetologist at the Palmetto Styling Salon in Boiling Springs.
Kim got the recipe from her mother Mary Tooke, who is also a member of Holly Springs.
The recipe asks for two cups of sugar in the frosting, but Kim and I both agree that it is a bit sweet so maybe you’ll want to use only one cup. Try to find the frozen coconut. If you use the packaged or canned, the frosting won’t be as moist. She says that when she cuts the cake into squares to serve, she sometimes sprinkles more coconut over each serving. This cake will keep several days in the refrigerator, so you can make it during the week and everybody will enjoy it with milk, iced tea, or a cup of coffee for … Sunday Dinner.
Coconut Ice Box Cake
1 18½-ounce box yellow cake mix
1 cup sour cream
1 or 2 cups sugar
¼ cup oil
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
2 6- or 8-ounce packages frozen coconut
Grease and flour a 9×13 baking pan. Preheat oven according to directions for cake.
Mix the cake mix as directed on the box, except use milk instead of the water listed, also adding the ¼ cup oil.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake as directed.
For the frosting, mix the sour cream, vanilla, sugar and coconut together and pour over cake while hot. Cover and let sit overnight in refrigerator. Cut into squares to serve, and keep any unused part covered and refrigerated.