You’ve come here for food, I know, not advice.  But, still, I have some advice to offer.  And, this being my blog and all, I’m going to go ahead and give it to you.  So, here goes.  When you forget your friend’s birthday by, say a week or so, there’s really only one thing you should do.  Make her a cake.  And make it good.  If your friend, like my friend Brynn, likes coconut cake and chocolate, then by all means, make the very cake you see pictured in this post.

Actually, the whole “make a cake” piece of advice applies equally well in a number of other settings.  If you’re so busy at work you can’t see straight, make a cake.  If it’s June and the entire weekend was cloudy and cold-cold-COLD, make a cake.  If you’ve heard Martha talk once again about Mrs. Milman’s Chocolate Frosting and you finally just have to make it, make a cake, and slather it with Mrs. Milman’s frosting (turns out that Martha, or Mrs. Milman, rather, is on to something because the stuff is unbelievable).

I’m sure there are a number of other reasons to make cake; these just happen to be the ones that apply to my life right now.   If you’re looking for a cake to turn to, this might just be the one for you.  It’s two light coconut cakes, sliced thinly in half to make four layers.  Each layer is swabbed with a pearly reduced coconut milk.  The layers are then stacked up like bricks—a vanilla-coconut frosting serving as the mortar.  For good measure, I also scattered some shredded coconut in between the layers.  The whole thing got jacketed in a dark chocolate ganache frosting.  At least for the forgetting-Brynn’s-birthday issue, it worked like a charm.

Dark Chocolate-Covered Coconut Cake
Adapted from Food & Wine, Bon Appetit and Martha Stewart

Printable Recipe

For the Cakes (from Food & Wine):

2 1/2 cups cake flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 stick plus 2 tablespoons (5 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
5 large egg whites

Preheat the oven to 350. Butter two 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. Butter and flour the pans, tapping out excess flour.

In a small bowl, sift the cake flour with the baking powder and salt. In a small pitcher, combine the milk with the coconut milk. In a medium bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until creamy. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until light and fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add the egg yolks and vanilla and beat until smooth. At low speed, add the dry ingredients in 3 batches, alternating with the milk mixture; beat until smooth.

In another bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites at high speed until firm but not dry. Stir one-third of the beaten whites into the batter until smooth, then fold in the remaining whites until no white streaks remain.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared cake pans and smooth the surfaces. Bake for 35 minutes, or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted into the centers comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Peel off the parchment paper.

For Vanilla Bean-Coconut Filling (from Bon Appetit):

2 13-to 14-ounce cans unsweetened coconut milk* (preferably organic)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup reduced coconut milk (see above), room temperature
Seeds scraped from 1 split vanilla bean or 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsweetened flaked coconut

Bring coconut milk to boil in large deep saucepan over medium-high heat (coconut milk will boil up high in pan). Reduce heat to medium low; boil until reduced to 1 1/2 cups, stirring occasionally, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from heat; cool completely. Transfer to small bowl. Cover; chill (coconut milk will settle slightly as it cools).

Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar, 1/3 cup reduced coconut milk (reserve the remaining milk; see “Assembly” below), seeds from vanilla bean, and salt. Beat on medium-low speed until blended, scraping down sides of bowl. Increase to medium high and beat until light and fluffy.

For Mrs. Milman’s Chocolate Frosting (from Martha Stewart):

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips
2 cups whipping cream
1/2 teaspoon light corn syrup

Place chocolate morsels and cream in a heavy saucepan. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula, until combined and thickened, between 20 and 25 minutes. Increase the heat to medium low; cook, stirring, 3 minutes more. Remove pan from heat.

Stir in corn syrup. Transfer frosting to a large metal bowl. Chill until cool enough to spread, about 2 hours, checking and stirring every 15 to 20 minutes. Use immediately.

For the Assembly:

Line a cake stand with strips of parchment or wax paper.

Using a sharp serrated knife, cut each cake into 2 even layers.  Place one cake layer on the stand.  Brush the layer with one-third of the remaining reduced coconut milk.  Spread with one-third of the coconut filling.  Scatter with 1/3 cup shredded coconut.  Repeat these steps with the remaining three cake layers.

Spread the chocolate frosting over the top and sides of the assembled cake.  Swoop a butter knife through the frosting to create swirls.  Chill until serving.