Coconut Chocolate Bundt Cake: The Last Word

This is my third and final post about my journey into bundt cake making.  My friend Michael gave me his recipe for Coconut Pecan Pound cake which was delicious and I posted the recipe.  Then after making the recipe I started getting ideas and wondered if I could cut the sweetness a bit by adding dark chocolate into the recipe. Also I love dark chocolate and coconut it's one of my favorite combinations. I documented this experiment and published a post about it where I said I wasn't finished with this recipe yet and still wanted to try a few more things. 

Here is the final version of this recipe.  The big difference is that I use butter instead of the canola oil and added a little more baking powder and salt to recipe along with a small amount of Baking Soda.  The batter as you can see from above is thicker then the original.

Coconut Chocolate Bundt Cake

Preheat the oven to 325 F


Generously butter and flour a bundt pan.


In a large bowl add 3 cups of All Purpose Flour, 1 Teaspoon Salt and 1 Teaspoon baking powder and  1/2 teaspoon of Baking Soda.  Whisk briefly to mix.

In another bowl pour 1 Cup Buttermilk and stir in 2 Teaspoons of Coconut Extract and 2 Teaspoons of good amber Rum.

Roughly chop 1 Cup of Pecans, place in a bowl with 1 Cup of unsweetened desiccated Coconut and 3/4 cup of roughly chopped 70% chocolate or chocolate chips.

In the bowl of an standing mixer add: 2 1/2 sticks (20 ounces, 1 1/4 cups) of unsalted butter and cream with the paddle attachment, add 2 cups sugar, once the sugar has been incorporated add, 1 at a time 4 Large Eggs.  Beating well after each addition.

Starting and ending with the flour mixture add alternatively with the buttermilk mixture into the batter with the beaters on low.  Mixing until well incorporated after each addition.  Turn off the mixer and with a spatula gently fold in the nut and chocolate mixture.

Place in the center of the preheated oven and bake for an hour to an hour and 15  - until a tester comes out clean.

While the cake is baking make the ganache and the soaking syrup.

Soaking Syrup:

In a small sauce pan add 1 cup of sugar and 1/2 cup water, bring to boil and immediately reduce to simmer, cook for several minutes until all the sugar has dissolved and remove from the heat.  Stir in 1 teaspoon of amber rum and 1 teaspoon of coconut extract.  Set aside until the cake is out of the oven.

The Ganache: 


In a small sauce pan add 1 cup of heavy cream and bring to a boil.  Immediately take it off the heat and pour over 6 ounces of chopped 70% chocolate, stirring until completely melted. Add 1 teaspoon rum (option) mix and set aside. 

When the cake is done remove from the oven and place on a wire rack, slowly pour the syrup over the cake,  I used a spatula to make room at the sides so the syrup didn't spill over.  The Cake should soak for at least 4 hours if not over night.

If you pre-make the ganache you will need to refrigerate it, take it out an hour before you want to ice the cake.  If you want it to be more like a glaze place it in a bowl and stir it over warm water until it has reached the thickness you want.  In this instance I kept it colder as I liked it better thick, if you look at the old post you'll see in my first attempt I did the glazed look.  Also I used toasted coconut the first time and larger un-toasted the second.  Ideally I think the larger coconut flakes would be best, maybe just ever so slightly toasted, but I like the look of the white coconut on the chocolate ganache.

This is a great party cake, with an almost crunchy sweet exterior and a rich, buttery crumb redolent of coconut all set off by rich dark chocolate!

Finally even though I add pecans i removed the word pecans from the name as they really become more background crunch in this cake it's the coconut and chocolate that take center stage.