This coconut cake is very coconutty, moist and not overly sweet! It’s made with coconut flour as well as regular all-purpose flour. Then, after it’s baked, it’s moistened with a coconut-infused simple syrup (no coconut extracts welcome here!). The homemade dulce de leche filling and the coconut cream frosting complement it perfectly!
Coconut cream frosting
When I made this cake it was the first time I used coconut cream to be honest. I was curious about it because one time I was researching about vegan frostings and came across some whipped coconut cream options. Even though my bakes are not exactly on the healthy side (love butter…), healthier variations of some ingredients do catch my attention sometimes. This was one of those times, since I saw that all you need for this frosting is chilled coconut cream and powdered sugar. And not the huge amount of powdered sugar needed for american buttercream mind you, but a mere 1/4 cup per can of coconut cream!
Little pieces of hardened coconut cream
I had a little bit of trouble with it the first time around. I left the can of coconut cream in the fridge to chill overnight, then when I opened it there was a thin-ish, hardened crust of cream on the surface. I didn’t know what to do with that so I just added it to mixing bowl to get whipped along with the rest of the cream. I thought it was going to dissolve into it as I mixed the frosting. But nope! There were still little pieces of it and the frosting was not super smooth. Also because I think it needed some more liquid… So the second time I removed the crust and added a little of the liquid from the can as I whipped the cream. The result was a much smoother frosting. Great!
Jump to RecipeHomemade Dulce de Leche
For the homemade dulce de leche, I used some that I had leftover in the fridge from the day I made the Alfajores with Homemade Dulce de Leche. I love it when I’m able to use all of the leftovers from something else I made. It’s a neverending battle over here with making a dish and having a little bit of an ingredient leftover. Then I try to make something else to use up that ingredient, and I’ll have some other thing leftover. And on and on… and I’ve done nothing but put on weight, little by little, since I started this blog a few months ago… haha Maybe I should start leaning to the healthy side on some more of my bakes.
How to Make the Tiny Gingerbread House
For the tiny gingerbread house, check this post: Gingerbread Cookies to find the recipe and many tips on baking the pieces, freezing, trimming edges and assembling it.
Template
I made a template for you of the little house pieces I used and their sizes. You can print this out, cut out the shapes, place them directly on the rolled out dough and cut around them. Make sure the dough is pretty firm during this process! That way you’ll get sharper edges. If it’s not too firm, place it in the fridge or freezer until you can’t easily leave an indentation when you press on it with your finger.
So here’s the link where you’ll find a PDF with the printable template:
Jump to RecipeDecorating and Assembling the Gingerbread House
On the Gingerbread Cookies post, you’ll find all instructions for using caramel to glue the house together, which is what I usually do. But with a house this tiny, you can use royal icing no problem! You can follow the same instructions listed on that post for assembling the house with royal icing.
Decorating with Royal Icing
I usually decorate the pieces with royal icing and let them dry thoroughly (1-3 hours or up to overnight, depending on how much icing there is) before I assemble the house 😉 For the royal icing I use the recipe that is on the container of Meringue Powder from Wilton, which is 3 Tbsp of meringue powder, 4 cups of powdered sugar and 5 Tbsp of water (I always add a bit more). Just whip everything together for about 7 minutes until icing forms peaks and feels like a good consistency for piping. Keep a damp towel over the bowl to prevent drying. I like to put it in a piping bag, tie it closed with a rubber band and place a little piece of a damp paper towel covering the decorating tip, to prevent drying as well.
Jump to RecipeCoconut Cake with Homemade Dulce de Leche
Ingredients
For the cake:
- 5 large eggs
- 334 g granulated sugar (1 2/3 cup)
- 200 g plain yogurt or Greek yogurt (7 oz)
- 100 g milk (3/8 cup)
- 190 g sunflower oil grape seed or canola oil (200 ml, or 3/4 cup + 1 Tbsp)
- 230 g all purpose flour (1 2/3 cups)
- 100 g coconut flour (approx. 1 1/8 cup)
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 3/4 tsp salt
For the coconut soak:
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes
For the frosting (This is for a semi-naked cake. For a fully frosted cake, double these quantities):
- 1 can of coconut cream (13.5 fl oz, or 400 ml, chilled overnight)
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar (sifted)
Instructions
For the cake:
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Preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C). Spray three 6-inch cake pans with baking spray – I like to spray just the sides and place a circle of parchment paper on the bottom.
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In the main bowl, sift the flour, coconut flour, baking powder and salt, whisk them together to combine.
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In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, the sugar, the yogurt, the milk and the oil.
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Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk them together just enough to combine everything. If there are lots of lumps, give it 2-3 more energetic whisks to break them up.
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Divide the batter among the cake pans and bake them for about 30-35 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
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Let them cool in the pans until they feel just warm to the touch. Remove them from the pans. Place them directly on the cooling rack to finish cooling.
For the coconut soak:
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Place the water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until it boils.
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Boil it for a minute and take the saucepan off the heat, add the sweetened coconut flakes, stir, cover and let them infuse for at least 15 minutes, until you're ready to use it.
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Strain the liquid to collect the coconut flakes.
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You can use however much you like to soak the cakes, I use about 2 Tbsp per layer (less if the layer is thinner).
For the frosting:
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Place the bowl of your electric mixer and the metal whisk attachment in the freezer for 15 minutes.
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Make sure the can of coconut cream has been chilling in the fridge overnight, sitting up without tipping over. Open the chilled can and carefully spoon out the cream into the bowl of your mixer (if there's a membrane of dried out cream on the surface, try to break it off carefully with the spoon, pick the pieces and toss them, don't mix them with the rest of the cream, unless you want little pieces in your frosting 🙂
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As you're spooning out the cream you'll reach the liquid that's in the bottom of the can. Don't use the liquid in the frosting, but keep it close by.
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Start whisking the cream with your mixer on medium speed for a minute, add the sifted powdered sugar and continue whisking (stopping to scrape down the sides a few times) until smooth! That should take just a couple minutes. I add a little bit of the water from the can, teaspoon by teaspoon, while watching for the consistency I want.
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Make the frosting just before you’re ready to assemble the cake.
Assembling the cake:
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I like to cut off a thin layer off the top of each cake using a long bread knife, just to expose the texture of the cake so more of the soaking liquid can get in. Also to keep them nice and leveled.
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Place a layer of cake on your cake stand or plate and soak it with some of the coconut soak.
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Fill with however much dulce de leche you want (find the recipe for homemade dulce de leche in my recipe for Alfajor cookies)
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Place the next layer on top. Soak that second layer with the coconut soak again. Repeat the dulce de leche filling and the last layer.
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Using an offset spatula, frost the cake with the coconut frosting and decorate it however you prefer!
Recipe Notes
Dividing the batter: You could also bake this cake in just two pans, but then you’ll have to divide the batter into thirds, place 2/3 into one pan and 1/3 into the other. I do not recommend baking all this batter into one tall cake pan because it’s a lot of batter, the center of it would take too long to bake while the sides would overbake, it would not be pretty.
For the frosting, if you use one can of coconut cream it will be enough for a semi-naked cake. If you want it to be fully frosted, make sure you use two cans!
Recipe size: This is a tall cake, but if you prefer shorter layers, use the following quantities and you’ll get three 1-inch tall layers (instead of 1.5 inches):
- 3 large eggs
- 200 g sugar (1 cup)
- 120 g yogurt (4.2 oz)
- 60 g milk (1/4 cup)
- 114 g oil (120 ml, or scant 1/2 cup)
- 138 g flour (1 cup)
- 60 g coconut flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
Karen Cooper
Such beautiful photos and delicious food.
admin
Thanks a lot Karen! 🙂