On the same day that I made the ridiculous chicken pot pie and the Spice-Crusted carrots with Harissa Yogurt, I also made dessert. My eye caught this recipe, as I was flipping through Bon Appetit March 2014 issue, that looked so delicious I couldn’t resist. It’s a chocolate coconut pound cake. I haven’t had pound cake in years and even though I’m still on that darn diet I just couldn’t resist this recipe. I did taste it and it’s really really good, dense, chocolately, the perfect crumb, sweet but not too sweet, so good, and I think it would be even better with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Chocolate-Coconut Pound Cake
(from Bon Appetit, March 2014)
-Preheat oven to 325°F -Butter an 8” x 4” loaf pan. Line with parchment paper, leaving a long overhang on the long sides of the pan.
Ingredients:
¼ cup unsalted butter, plus more
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp kosher salt
¾ tsp baking powder
½ cup virgin coconut oil, room temperature
1 ½ cups plus
1 Tbsp sugar
3 large eggs – room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract (I used chocolate)
2/3 cup buttermilk
¼ cup unsweetened coconut flakes
Directions:
Whisk flour, cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder together in a medium bowl and set aside.
Using an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat oil, ¼ cup butter, and 1 ½ cups sugar until page and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating to blend between additions; beat until mixture is very light and doubled in volume, 5 to 8 minutes. Add vanilla (or chocolate extract if you’re using that).
Reduce mixer speed to low and add dry ingredients in 3 additions, alternating with the buttermilk in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. DO NOT OVERMIX OR YOUR CAKE MIGHT BUCKLE!
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and run a spatula down the center to create a canal. Spring the top of pan with coconut flakes and the remaining tablespoon of sugar.
Bake cake, tenting with foil if the coconut browns too much on the top – but it should be very dark and toasted but not burned. The cake is done when a tester in the middle comes out clean 70-80 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack; let cake cool in the pan for 20 minutes before removing from the pan. You can pull it out with the dangling parchment paper. Let cool.
This cake can be baked ahead and kept fresh by tightly wrapping it and keeping it at room temperature.
