Coconut cake

Strap in, this one’s a doozy. Carla made a very long series on Bon Appetit about layer cakes, and this was one of the featured recipes. Unfortunately, it didn’t contain any actual quantities, so I had to improvise a bit. I made this for my birthday in 2019, and it turned out delicious, but also enormous. Plan to feed a family of 5 for a week with this recipe, and beware making it with only two to consume, even if hosting a party.

Coconut Cake

Ingredients

• 4 cups cake flour
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 3 sticks unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 6 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tsp almond extract

Directions

1. Whisk dry ingredients together in a large bowl.
2. Cream in butter using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer.
3. Combine wet ingredients, and incorporate into mixture in 4 additions, beating on medium-high for a total of about 2 minutes.
4. Pour into 3 9” cake pans, and bake at 350 °F for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Toasted Coconut Caramel Filling

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 1/2 cups virgin coconut oil
• 2 tsp salt
• 3 cups toasted finely shredded coconut

Directions

1. Toast shredded coconut in a pan until fragrant and slightly browned.
2. Caramelize the sugar on the stove, then, off the stove, slowly add heavy cream. This completely broke the first time I made it, and I remain a little skeptical that that much cream can be incorporated.
3. Melt in coconut oil, off heat. This melts at around room temperature, so leaving it near the stove will probably warm it into liquid form already.
4. Stir in toasted coconut.

Italian Meringue

Ingredients

• 6 egg whites
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups sugar
• 2/3 cup water

Directions

1. Combine sugar and water in a small saucepan, bringing to a boil. Continue boiling until soft ball stage, 110 °C (235 °F). This temperature is fairly critical, as it determines the sugar/water ratio in the mixture.
2. Beat egg whites in a stand mixer until frothy, then add cream of tartar and salt.
3. Timed so that the sugar mixture hits temperature at the same time the eggs are beaten to a very soft peak, begin adding sugar mixture to eggs, and continue beating until stiff peaks are achieved.

Topping

• 1 1/2 cup toasted coconut flakes

Assembly

1. Cut cakes in half, layering back together with toasted coconut caramel filling in the middle. Make sure to include a ring of Italian meringue frosting to ensure filling doesn’t leak out.
2. Frost the cake in entirety, then sprinkle top with toasted coconut flakes.

Thoughts

I’ve made this once, and I doubt I’ll ever make it again, at least not at full scale. It took about 2 days and produced way more cake than I could eat. It was very sweet, but maintained a complex enough flavor profile not to be overwhelming (the caramel filling helped tremendously). I’m also not sure if the quantities are correct, as I had to bake an additional cake and wound up with an extreme excess of caramel filling, though I had to save the caramel by significant additions of ingredients to unbreak it. Overall, I would recommend practicing with a 6” cake or a 2 (4) layer cake instead of the full 3 (6) layer cake. My cake stand also wasn’t tall enough to contain the full might of the 6 layer cake, so I tossed one of the halves and wound up with a 5-layer cake. It was pretty excessive.