Thursday 22 October 2020

Chocolate And Coconut Cake

Okay, this is it: my final recipe from Zaitoun by Yasmin Khan!  Time to make a sweet treat, rather than the spicy mains I've made previously from her recipes.  I've made a tiny change or two (as per normal), just to ramp up the flavour.  And I've written the recipe in a manner that is just a wee bit clearer, I think!  Yasmin seems to go a bit vague at times :-)

Regular readers will know of my childhood filled with coconuts which our grandmother handed out regularly to our mum.  Dad would get the hammer and chisel, and whack away.  And we would be gnawing on chunks of coconut for days to come.  I think that was quite an unusual thing back in those days.  I certainly don't remember my comrades at school eating them.  Where on earth did Nan get them, I wonder?  Fresh coconuts were surely not the norm in cold and rainy Melbourne?  Maybe she was shimmying up coconut palms on her holidays?


darkly beautiful and delicious


ingredients:


The cake:


200g. (7 oz) butter (use unsalted if you wish)

200g. (7 oz) caster sugar - use vanilla sugar or raw caster for a deeper taste

3 large eggs

200g. (7 oz) plain flour

65g. (2.3 oz) cocoa powder 

1½ tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp sea salt

100g. (3.5 oz) shredded or dessicated coconut

185 mL (6.2 fl oz) coconut milk, or milk of your choice - see notes

1 tsp vanilla extract or paste


The ganache:


300 mL (10.5 oz) thickened cream

250g. (8 oz) dark chocolate, roughly chopped - I used Lindt 70% cocoa

3 tbs icing sugar/confectioners' sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

a scattering of extra coconut or bling of your choice, to serve 


Method:


On goes your oven to heat @ 180C/350F

Grease a 20 cm/8 inch x 5 cm/2 inch cake tin, and line the base with baking paper

Cream the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl with electric hand beaters or a stand mixer (or a wooden spoon if you feel the need for some arm exercise)

Add the eggs one at a time, and beat in well

Tip in the sifted flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt and beat on a slow speed till incorporated into the batter

Stir in the shredded coconut, and add the coconut milk and vanilla extract - I gave it a gentle whizz with the beaters

Spoon/pour the batter into the prepared tin, and bake for about 35 minutes till a skewer thrust into its dark heart comes out clean

Let it sit and ponder the universe for five minutes, then out it comes onto a wire rack to get completely cool

Now you want to make the ganache, so heat the cream in a small saucepan till juuust boiling

Remove the saucepan from the heat and gently tip in the chopped chocolate

Stir, and keep stirring till the chocolate is melted

Now it sits and comes to room temperature, then you whip it good! (as the song goes) until light and fluffy like - you guessed it! - whipped cream 

In goes the icing sugar, and vanilla extract, and give it a quick stir

Spoon the ganache over the cake, and sprinkle on whatever bling you fancy - I used rose petals and glitter and sparkles ...


Notes:


I used some black cocoa powder which gave the batter a dark hue

I decided on coconut milk for a deeper coconut flavour, but go ahead with whatever milk you fancy - it's best to stick to a full-fat milk though.  But don't use that pallid fakery of a coconut milk that comes in a carton - it's nearly all water! - use the tinned, unsweetened one

I must confess it took waaaay longer to whip the ganache into a firm consistency than I thought it would.  I ended up putting it into the fridge halfway thru, and letting it cool right down before whipping some more.  I guess room temp. in the 'other' hemisphere is not the same as Queensland room temp.:-)


Tip:


Confession time: our quite new oven is giving me problems with the oven temp. - just like my old one!  I am having to add at least 15 degrees to the cooking temps. given; so this cake was a teensy bit dry when it came out.  My solution (which I've used several times in the past) is to make Nigella Lawson's chocolate syrup by simmering 125 mL of water, 100g. of sugar and 1 teaspoon of cocoa powder for a few minutes then cooling slightly.  You then either sit the cake in it, and let it soak up the syrup (as I had already iced it), or pour the syrup all over the cake before icing.  This gives it a lovely and moist flavour boost.  Oh yes, I added 1 tablespoon of Frangelico to the syrup too!



cream the butter and sugar till light and fluffy


sift the dry ingredients


beat together, and add the coconut


add the coconut milk


batter in the tin ready for baking at 180C for about 35 mins.


ready for icing


whip the ganache ingredients 


slather all over the cake


nice with a cuppa



© Sherry's Pickings


44 comments:

  1. I really love the dark cocoa powder, which gives the cake a beautifully dramatic look...so yummy!

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    1. thanks angie. yes the black cocoa powder gives baked goods a definite hue!

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  2. I've found the temperature on every oven we've owned has "drifted" over time. So I always keep an oven thermometer in it, and when the baking temperature is critical, I just adjust the thermostat until the thermometer gives me the reading I'm aiming for. A bit of a pain, but it works. Anyway, this is a terrific looking cake. After lemon, coconut is my favorite flavor in baked goods, and it plays so well with chocolate. This looks excellent -- thanks. (Nice coconut painting, too!)

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    1. i can't believe my 'new' oven is as bad as my old one! makes baking a wee bit difficult. thanks re the painting.

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  3. OH my goodness! This looks superb! I am bookmarking this for a non keto day/treat!

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  4. I love coconut! Not so much chocolate, but the combo might pull me in!

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    1. that's interesting jeanie. most people seem to like chocolate but not coconut:-)

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  5. I'm an icing person and I so want to just take a fork and eat that beautiful icing right off the top of the cake, but then I'd probably miss the good part. :) Yummy looking cake!

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  6. Your sequence of photo of making the batter and baking the cake is very enjoyable to view. I think I would love a slice of that cake now! Too bad about the oven temp.

    be well... mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    1. glad you liked them Mae:) yes my oven is driving me nuts. such a nuisance. and it's such a young oven to go astray like this ...

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  7. Wow, Sherry! This is a chocolate lover's dream! Love the coconut with the chocolate. And the frosting looks so dreamy!

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  8. Hello! :)
    very interesting post. I read it with pleasure. you write very interestingly and your posts are very inspiring :) if you want, we can visit each other or observe our blogs :)
    Greetings from Poland!

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  9. This looks perfect to me, but similar to Mr. P and seafood, Markipedia won't touch coconut. Go figure.

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    1. hi david
      yes lots of people seem to be anti-coconut. sometimes i get it - it can be dry and tasteless if you use the dessicated stuff!

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  10. I saw this on your Instagram just then and it looked great Sherry! I am a big fan of chocolate and coconut. Anything with coconut really!

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  11. Chocolate and coconut combination on a cake looks so yummy, but I haven't tried this on a cake. The dark brown cake color looks so chocolatey, and I'm sure ganache added even more to it, you made me crave for a dessert now!!

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  12. That's a funny note about you chewing on bits of coconut as a kid. That reminds me that we would do the same thing with sugar cane! Either way, this cake sounds quite tasty. I love chocolate and I love coconut! I wonder about your oven, though. Since both ovens had similar issues, I wonder if it's something else - maybe they aren't getting enough power??

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    1. hi david
      yes weird about the coconut. goodness knows where she got it! i think our oven isn't sitting properly in its position. too much heat seems to escape from it. just like the old one! must get the gas man in soon.

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  13. I enjoyed your tale of Grandma's coconuts! Though a bit surprised no one ever asked her where she got them. We have coconuts dropping off the trees in our front, and back gardens, so the issue is doing something constructive with them. This cake would make a wee dent:) It looks very tempting.

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    1. wow must be hard to find something to do with multiple coconuts! lucky you. where are you from?

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  14. The right temperature in an oven can be tricky. I almost ruined my duck legs when I made them in my little stove in my cabin. I am going to take John’s advice and buy a thermometer. Your cake looks good.

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    1. yes me too. i must rush out and get an oven thermometer soon!!

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  15. Hi Sherry, i promise to comment more later but I got a question about blogger - have you been having any trouble? In the Post section where blog posts and draft posts are - my thumbnail image is incorrect as someone else image has been inserted; and some of my blog post images are inserted with images. But outward it all appears all right - are you having similar problems. I am just checking if other bloggers have encountered similar error. Let me know. I have left feedback to blogger, but don't know if they will respond. Let me know, please.

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    1. hi shaheen
      thankfully i haven't had too much trouble with the new blogger tho it took a bit of getting used to, i must admit. i am amazed at how many bloggers talk about using the html element of it. i have only ever added a post via the 'compose view' bit. i haven't noticed anything about the images in Post but then again i haven't looked! Blogger NEVER responds to my queries - ever!

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  16. I'm not a big coconut fan on its own but I enjoy it in savory dishes such as Indonesian Peanut Chicken and I'm sure I would love it paired with chocolate :)

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    1. hi judi
      coconut does seem to be a bit polarising doesn't it? it is good with chocolate - viz. the famous aussie lamington:-)

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  17. Sherry I was sure I had commented on your post, so where did it go, perhaps I just drooled over this cake and wrote something but didn't send it. Anyhow, great recipe, and I need to get some of the black cocoa powder. Where do you buy yours? Love that you use shredded coconut as well. Also a great tip for Nigellas chocolate syrup, so it can be chocolate syrup cake as well. Perfect cake for dessert. Good luck with your oven, that would be so annoying. Thanks Pauline

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    1. i know what you mean pauline. blogger has always been a bugger when it comes to comments. many people have told me they've commented over the years - never to be seen!... I actually bought the cocoa powder at a dessert festival, but you can buy it online from places like cakerswarehouse.com.au Yep i love that chocolate syrup trick - it has perked up a few of my cakes over the years:-)

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  18. Sherry like David from Spiced, my childhood was about chewing sugarcane. I would of loved to have had coconut to chew on! I have a fond memory of a childhood treat (that was likely very bad for you) called a Hostess Snowball. It was a little round of chocolate cake with a marshmallow topping covered with coconut. That's what your recipe reminds me of and that's a good thing...

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    1. chewing sugarcane? interesting. snowball? we had/have them here too - shortbread base, then marshmallow then chocolate coating and coconut. yum!

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  19. Coconut and chocolate go so well together, Sherry - this looks like a lovely recipe!

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  20. Cakes like this will soon by on the go here as Christmas approaches! Yum!

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    1. hi Unknown
      i'm trusting that you are a real person:) THere is no info linked to your profile on blogger! Mm i don't really think of this as a Xmas cake but anyway ...

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  21. I love that deep, dark colour of the batter and thanks for the tip for dry cakes. Ovens can vary so much - I had some teething temperature issues when I got a new oven. This cake looks sooo good though :)

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    1. thanks sammie. yep the black cocoa is amazing. this darn oven of ours is driving me nuts. it gets worse by the week!

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  22. That cake looks decadent, rich and moist. Perfect with the coffee I am holding now

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