Chocolate Coconut Cake
This intensely rich chocolate layer cake is filled with creamy chocolate buttercream and sweet dessicated coconut. A truly indulgent chocolate cake!
Ingredients
Chocolate Cakes
- 220 g plain flour
- 70 g cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 250 g caster sugar
- 200 g butter softened
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 medium eggs room temperature
- 150 ml sour cream room temperature
- 120 ml hot coffee heaped tsp instant coffee granules mixed into 120ml hot water
- 60 g desiccated coconut for filling and decoration
Chocolate Buttercream
- 200 g butter softened
- 340 g icing sugar sifted
- 60 g cocoa powder sifted
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp milk
Instructions
Chocolate Cakes
- Preheat your oven to 170°C/150°C Fan. Grease the base and sides of two 20cm sandwich tins and line the base with baking/parchment paper. Set aside.
- To a large bowl add the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and sugar. Whisk to combine and set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or a large bowl if using a hand whisk) beat the butter on medium speed for 30 seconds to soften.
- Next add the vanilla extract, eggs one at a time until incorporated (around 10 seconds between each egg addition) and then the sour cream. Mix until just combined.
- Add half of your dry ingredients into this bowl and mix on low speed until just combined. Repeat with the remaining half of dry ingredients.
- Finally, add the hot coffee to this bowl and mix carefully on low speed (to avoid it splashing out of the bowl!) until just combined. The final mixture will be smooth and quite pourable.
- Pour and spread the mixture evenly between the two cake tins.
- Bake on the same shelf (or bake separately if they won't both fit) for 30 minutes. They will be baked when a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and they've slightly shrunken away from the sides of the tin. The cakes will be slightly cracked and domed when baked, though the dome will sink down as they cool.
Chocolate Buttercream
- In the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachment fitted (or a large bowl if using a hand mixer) beat the softened butter on medium-high speed for 1 minute to soften.
- With the mixer on low speed, add the icing sugar and cocoa powder a tablespoon at a time, until all incorporated.
- Add the salt, vanilla extract and milk, and then turn the mixer to medium-high speed for a full 5 minutes. This is essential to make the icing as light and fluffy as possible!
Assembling the Cake
- Place the first cake layer onto your chosen serving plate so that the top of the cake is touching the plate as shown.
- Add just under 1/4 of the chocolate buttercream and spread evenly. Sprinkle 30g of the desiccated coconut evenly on top of the buttercream as shown.
- Add the next cake layer top side down onto the icing, the give a flat surface to the top of the cake. Alternatively, you could level the cake by cutting the top off, but I'm not great at doing this!
- Use the rest of the buttercream to cover the top and sides of the cake, and keep enough to put into a piping bag with a star nozzle to pipe swirls around the top of the cake as I've done (perfect for adding mini eggs/any other pretty decorations!)
- Sprinkle and press the coconut onto the sides of the cake (this does get messy but be patient, the effect and taste is worth it!). Sprinkle the remaining coconut on top of the cake.
- Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge. Best eaten within 3 days.
Notes
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