"Need help translating an "antique" recipe!

[busyme]

I've been looking for a scratch coconut cake to make for my father who remembers his Mom making them, including grating the coconut!

I found the following recipe in a cookbook I bought at an estate sale, but being a novice, I wasn't really sure how to proceed. I found a white cake recipe that looked similar and tried to follow the directions, but the result was not very good. I whipped the egg whites separately and tried to fold in, but I was afraid to mix too much and they didn't blend in very well!

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to combine these ingredients, what heat oven to use, etc?

2/3 cup butter
2 cp sugar
3 cp flour
3 tsp baking powder
1 cp warm water
1 tsp orange extract
8 egg whites
1 tsp salt

The directions say: "the cake is made as any good white cake is, by creaming butter and sugar very well, etc. Place in two layers and bake"

Then she gives the coconut icing recipe.

My results were tough and eggy.

Any thoughts appreciated!

[CraftyChef]

Seems to me you could mix the dry ingredients, rub the butter into the mix, add the water (which should melt the butter at that point; maybe mixing it with your hands would help) and flavoring in batches, whip the whites to stiff, then fold in to the batter in batches.