Easter Sunday. The last few years Yuji and I have gone to my grandmother’s for Easter. She lives alone in the same house in Levittown she bought with my grandfather in 1955 or 56.

I like going to my grandmother’s on Easter – it reminds me of being a kid. Peeps, bad sugary chocolate, Easter bunny cake. Those baskets with the fake cellophane grass.

This year I found a recipe online for carrot coconut cake. It was originally published in the 80s in the New York Times. That’s it in the photo above, decorated with jelly beans, and, of course, a pink Peep. It has whipped cream with shredded coconut folded in. I had fun making the cake on Saturday, but to be honest, I didn’t love the results and am not posting the recipe here.

Partly it might be my own fault. I always reduce the amount of sugar in dessert recipes. Here for instance I used unsweetened coconut instead of sweetened like the recipe called for. I used Turbinado sugar (only 1/2 c) plus 1/4 c molasses, instead of the 1 c white sugar that was listed. I also only had 9″ cake pans instead of 8″, so the cake came out a little flat.

In the end it tasted more like something you’d have for breakfast than cake for dessert. My grandmother was kind and said she liked it but I could tell she wasn’t thrilled. She left half her slice untouched, a rare occurrence for a woman who would prefer to sustain herself on coffee cake and Entenmann’s than real food.

But I still think it looks pretty and festive! Below is my hand-whipped cream. Do you know how long it takes to whip a pint of heavy cream with a whisk? 22 minutes. (My hand blender broke.)