Vogue on Peninsula Grill's 12-Pound Coconut Cake

The Ultimate Coconut Cake lives here (and in Vogue's heart) [Photo: Provided]

Vogue's Jeffrey Steingarten wrote an ode to Southern coconut cake, and he was especially fond of the famed, celebrity-adored one by Charleston's own Peninsula Grill. Even after it had been frozen, overnighted and then defrosted before consumption. Here are few of the highlights:

"It weighs twelve pounds (enough for 24 servings of dessert) and costs $100 plus $97.62 for overnight shipping. It arrived the next day, and yes, it was in pristine condition—deeply frozen and just barely waking from cryo-hibernation, like the spaceship crews in 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien.

They tried to bake their own, but nothing stacked up to the Holy City monstrosity:

"...when we finally cut ourselves some slices of the cake from Peninsula Grill, we agreed that it was close to the best we'd ever tasted. A day later, at room temperature, the Peninsula Grill Ultimate Coconut Cake had reached its prime, and it stayed there for 48 hours. Its flavors and textures had merged and melded, the filling and frosting were light, nearly fluffy, and its grain was delicate and tender.

"In this way, the entire cake, all 28,000 calories of it, disappeared within 36 hours. Twenty-eight thousand!"

· Sugar High: Baking the Perfect Coconut Cake [Vogue]
· Peninsula Grill [Official]
· Bette Midler on Blake Lively's Wedding Cake [-ECHS-]