I made this for a party last night and everyone came back for seconds. It was a huge success. BUT - I read a lot of reviews that talked about the recipe sometimes failing as well as how oily it was. So I looked at similar recipes to see how they differ and made a few changes. Here they are: 1. Let all ingredients come to room temperature. Eggs, buttermilk, etc. all mix better when they aren't cold. 2. I skipped the shortening. There is a ton of oil in this recipe and adding shortening is just too much. Mine came out great and wasn't too oily like other people talked about. 3. I've never seen a recipe that calls for adding the baking soda to the buttermilk. I wonder if this will make it clump up. I mixed it with the flour since they are both dry and will blend better. 4. The icing was just enough to cover the top of each cake layer, but not the sides. I left it that way, but if you want to cover the sides you'll need to make more icing.

Reviewed On: Sep. 13, 2009

Good, but was much too dry for our tastes. I would have prefered doubling the sauce portion. I also made a few changes based on other reviews. I used half the bacon and added two grilled chickedn breasts (cubed). Used two cloves of garlic. I also added peas, but made the mistake of using canned peas that came out mushy. Bad move. I should have used frozed peas and steamed them before adding them in at the end. The recipe was good, but really needed more cream.

Reviewed On: Jan. 12, 2009

I made it without the coconut shavings and it was a big hit. I don't like too much coconut in anything, and this had just enough to give it a nice flavor without being overpowering.

Reviewed On: Apr. 6, 2008