Coconut Chocolate Layer Cake

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This wonderful cake is an irresistible combination of coconut, chocolate and vanilla. In fact none of these flavours is predominant but the three of them combined are creating a great tasty experience!

It has been a long time since I made a proper layer cake. The reason is only one: these cakes are not really the quickest desserts (even though I dare to say that majority of my cake recipes are among the easiest you can find). When you bake a layer cake, you need time for the cake base to cool down before you can frost it. In addition the frosted cake has to stay several hours in the fridge before you cut it, otherwise there is a risk the pieces to look not very good (already happened on some of my photos). So due to my more and more limited time I tend to make desserts that take less than 60 minutes for preparation. This allows me to prepare them at night and photograph on the next day. That's good because my readers get recipes that are really quick and easy… but now I am missing my good old layer cakes (and maybe you miss my layer cake recipes too :))

I made this Coconut Chocolate Layer Cake cake several months ago but for some reason I didn't publish the recipe right away. I think it was exactly when the fruit season started so I decided that it was not the right time for coconut and chocolate desserts. Also some of the photos look a bit wintery in my view, so I didn't want to show them in the beginning of the summer… Well, the summer is not over yet and the fruit season has not ended up but somehow I decided that the time has come to publish this recipe.

This Coconut Chocolate Layer Cake was my first experience with coconut flour. Since then I kind of started loving it and there were several more recipes that I have created using this wonderful product: Chia Seed Brownies, Hazelnut Cookies with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream and of course, Raw Carrot Truffles. In the current cake I mixed all purpose flour with coconut flour in the batter for the base.

The inside frosting is made of mascarpone, sour cream and shredded coconut. The chocolate is added only to the frosting outside. The decoration is similar to the Chocolate Dream Cake: truffles made out of trimmed pieces of the cake base mixed with the chocolate frosting. Some of the truffles are coated in coconut flour so they look a bit like snowballs - it was unintended effect, which would probably make this cake a good option for Christmas parties 🙂

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5 from 1 vote

Coconut Chocolate Layer Cake

Prep Time 40 minutes mins

Cook Time 50 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Ingredients

Cake Base:

• ▢ 4 eggs
• ▢ 180 g all purpose flour, (1 ½ cups)
• ▢ 40 g coconut flour, (½ cup)
• ▢ 200 g sugar, (1 cup)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• ▢ 60 g butter, (¼ cup),melted
• ▢ 150 g full fat yogurt, (½ cup and 1 tbs)
• ▢ 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ▢ ⅓ teaspoon salt

Frosting and decoration:

• ▢ 150 g powdered sugar, (1 ¼ cups)
• ▢ 500 g mascarpone, (17.6 oz)
• ▢ 350 g sour cream, (1 ½ cup)
• ▢ 60 g shredded coconut, (½ cup)
• ▢ 110 g dark chocolate, melted (1 cup)
• ▢ coconut flour to coat the truffles, optional

Glaze:

• ▢ 60 g white chocolate, (½ cup)
• ▢ 3 teaspoons milk

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Instructions

Cake Base:

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F). Line a 17-18 cm (7 inch) cake pan with a circle of parchment paper. Grease well the pan on top.
• In a medium bowl combine all purpose flour, coconut flour, baking powder and salt. Mix with a spoon to remove any crumbs.
• In a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer beat together eggs and sugar until the mixture triples its volume. Add butter and vanilla and beat until absorbed. Add yogurt and whisk shortly, until combined.
• Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing gently with wooden spoon until absorbed.
• Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Frosting:

• In a large mixing bowl combine mascarpone, sour cream and powdered sugar. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth.
• Divide the mixture into two halves. Add the shredded coconut to one half. Mix well until combined.
• Using a rubber spatula gradually fold the melted chocolate into the second half of the mixture. Mix gently until uniform.

Glaze:

• Combine the white chocolate and the milk in a heatproof bowl. Place the bowl over a pan with gently simmering water (double boiler). Mix until the chocolate is melted and combined with the milk.

To assemble the cake:

• Using a serrated knife cut the base into three equal layers. Trim any uneven parts and keep them aside.
• Place one layer on a serving plate and frost it with half of the coconut frosting. Cover with another layer and frost with the rest of the coconut frosting. Place the third layer on top. Frost the cake all around with the chocolate frosting, leaving apart few tablespoons of it.
• Break the trimmed parts of the cake base into crumbs and combine them with the leftover chocolate frosting. Mix well and make balls out of the mixture (if needed, refrigerate first). Coat some of the balls with coconut flour.
• Spoon the glaze over the cake. Decorate with the truffles.

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