Smitten what?

Hard to believe I know, but until recently I had never heard of Smitten Kitchen.  I really had no idea what I was missing out on!  Upon my first perusal of SK, I came across a cake that, I'm pretty sure, was meant just for me.  Anyone who knows me knows that I have a special affinity for "girlie drinks"--piña coladas being very near the top of my list of favorites.  So when I saw this piña colada cake with REAL pineapple, cream of coconut, and dark rum, it immediately went to the top of my "things to bake" list.

Via

If you have trouble finding the cream of coconut (like I did), check in the bar supplies section of your grocery store.  I spent a good 15 minutes wandering around Kroger looking for cream of coconut because none of the employees had any idea what I was talking about.  I thought that it would surely be with the coconut water and oil in the health food section, or even possibly with the condensed milk.  But no, it was where I should have looked first (considering the title of this recipe), with the bar supplies.

This cake fulfilled and exceeded my expectations, which were unusually high, because I was really looking forward to this coconuty, pineappley, tropical-escape-in-35 degree-weather, why-isn't-it-warm-outside-yet, cake.  Which I'll admit, is a lot of pressure to put on one cake.

Via

*Sorry, no pictures of my actual cake--my camera battery died and I was NOT going to wait for the battery to charge to cut in to this cake!