My Great Grandmother'S Buttermilk Lemon Coconut Cake - cooking recipe

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups shortening
2 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon lemon extract
3 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
2 1/2 - 3 cups milk
3 cups grated coconut (unsweetened)
1 1/2 cups marshmallows (her recipe says \"handful\")
1 teaspoon almond extract (my mom and I added this)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 300. Grease and flour 3 9\" cake pans. Sift together flour and salt.
Cream shortening and sugar until fluffy.
Beat in eggs one at a time until combined.
Add buttermilk, soda, and flavoring.
Add flour mixture gradually until combined. This is similar to a pound cake batter.
Pour into cake pans at bake for 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean.
For Icing:
Cook sugar, milk, coconut, marshmallows over a double boiler until smooth. Note: as it is hard to find unsweeted coconut, I've used sweeted and reduced the sugar to 1/2 Cup. Fold in almond extract. Icing will be fairly runny--it's supposed to seep into the cake and run off the sides. If you want it to be thicker, add more marshmallows.
Ice layers and top of cake while still hot. I poke holes in the layers with a toothpick so that the icing seeps down into the cake.
Cover and refrigerate overnight. No cheating! You MUST serve it after it's been refrigerated, and serve it cold - it's best that way.
Enjoy!