My new favorite coconut cake recipe (with pictures)

While cake is usually not my favorite dessert, I do like it. And I'm a huge fan of a good coconut cake. I've tried a number of recipes but this recipe for a coconut cake which was featured on Bobby Flay's Throwdown resulted in the best coconut cake I have ever tasted. It features real vanilla bean, a coconut simple syrup, and coconut custard which is then incorporated into both the cake filling and the not-too-sweet buttercream frosting.

I made a couple of small adjustments to the recipe: I have a good quality coconut extract which I had purchased at Fox & Obel and I added a few drops to the simple syrup, custard and buttercream . . . just enough to moderately increase the coconut flavor to my liking. Also, I only have 10" cake pans - the recipe calls for 9" pans.

But the cake was really outstanding - great coconut flavor (but as stated above, I added a little coconut extract), very moist, and a great combination of cake, custard, buttercream and crisp toasted coconut. You might notice that the buttercream is not very sweet at all (some have commented on this on the website), but resist temptation to sweeten it up - the other components of the cake (including the toasted, sweetened coconut) are sweet enough. So if you like coconut cake, I highly suggest giving this recipe a try. I served it to friends over the weekend and they loved it too.

I forgot to take pictures along the way, and I don't have a picture of the whole cake, but here are a couple of pictures of the leftovers.

darn I love coconut cake and yours looks great!!! Maybe next week will have to give it a try!!! Thanks for the inspiration

buzzd wrote:darn I love coconut cake and yours looks great!!! Maybe next week will have to give it a try!!! Thanks for the inspiration

And thanks for the compliment - hopefully, you won't be let down.

Made this again - equally pleased with results the second time and my friends just raved about this cake. It is just so moist, and by adding some real coconut extract to the simple syrup, custard filling and buttercream, I got the big coconut punch I wanted. Here are a few more pictures of the components and finished cake.

The cake calls for baking two layers, and then cutting each layer in half:


cake cut into two layers


When assembling the cake, each layer is first brushed with a coconut simple syrup (sugar, water, sweetened flaked coconut, with coconut strained). Each layer is then covered with a layer of the coconut custard filling, which is not very thick. Here are pictures of the finished custard (black specks are vanilla) and custard spread on one of the layers:


coconut custard


custard spread on a cake layer


Once the layers are in place, it's time to top with buttercream. There's just a little bit of butter in the buttercream :


lots o' butter

Here's the finished buttercream:


buttercream frosting

The cake is then topped with sweetened coconut that has been toasted, and here's a picture of the finished cake:


finished cake

I'm not a big coconut fan, but I would make an exception for that cake. It looks fantastic, BR!

Absolutely fabulous! Great photos! If it were not going to be 90+ degrees today, I would consider making one of these along with the lattice topped peach pie in the other thread. Wow would my family be happy! THANKS! --Joy

What a beautiful cake! The FN instruction says that it is a 6 and a half hour prep and cook time. Was that your experience?

Thank you all for the compliments.

It did take quite a bit of time to make, but I don't have the time or patience to do it at one time. So I made the simple syrup, custard and buttercream and toasted the coconut the night before. I made the cake layers and assembled it all the next day. None of the steps were particularly time consuming, and some can be done at the same time as others (such as when the cake is baking/cooling, while the coconut is sitting in the simple syrup, or while the coconut is toasting). If you organize your time well, I think you can do it in less than 6 1/2 hours. For me, the most time consuming step was the assembly, especially spreading the buttercream. But I'd say it was well worth the effort.