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The cake was originally from Zukin. The coconut frosting is a coconut milk variant on the BH&G coconut-pecan frosting. The chocolate frosting is left as an exercise.
Whisk together:
2/3 Cup oil
3 Eggs
Add:
1 2/3 Cup Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla
Combine in a second bowl:
2 Cup (plus a bit) Flour
2/3 Cup Cocoa Powder
1 1/4 tsp. Baking Soda
1/4 tsp. Baking Powder
Add to oil-egg-sugar mixture, alternating with above dry:
1 1/3 Cup Water
Pour into 2 greased and cocoa-powdered 9 inch round cake pans. Bake at 350 F for 30-35 minutes. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Invert onto wire racks.
In a saucepan, beat slightly:
1 Egg
Stir in:
2/3 Cup Coconut Milk
2/3 Cup Sugar
Cook and stir over medium heat about 12 minutes or until it thickens. Believe me, you will know when it thickens. If you're not sure, it hasn't yet.
Stir in:
1 1/3 Cups Flaked Coconut
1/2 Cup nut meal (walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts)
You can chop the nuts fine or you can run them through a blender.
Cool thoroughly (overnight in the fridge) before frosting. It'll probably only cover the tops of the layers; use a chocolate frosting for the sides. If you double it, you can do the whole cake. I grew up on a sweetened coconut flake and pecan version of this frosting; now I prefer unsweetened coconut flake and blendered hazelnut meal.
The following is not a recipe. It's directions for learning how to make icing and frosting. Start with a couple boxes of confectioners sugar, a tin of cocoa powder, a stick of margarine, some liqueurs and some hot water.
Cups of Confectioner's Sugar
Tablespoons of Cocoa Powder
Tablespoons of Margarine
Just enough Water to make it spreadable
Liqueur to taste
It's a mix dry, beat in wet kind of thing.
You can get some really cool effects with Amaretto, Frangelico, Vanilla, Almond Extract, Grand Marnier. Try to complement whatever else is going on in the cake. Other spices can be used but sparingly. Give yourself lots of time and permission to throw away failures and you can wind up with a truly wonderful dessert. And if you have graham crackers handy, testing can be lots of fun.
I used strawberries and raspberries pureed in a blender, and confectioners sugar to make pink frosting on one of the cakes.
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This file recreated from The Internet Wayback Machine in January 2002. Copyright Rebecca Allen, 2002.
Updated 11 April 2016