Hello friends, today I will show you how to make a Chocolate Coconut Cake that is absolutely delicious! It is filled with coconut brigadeiro, and covered in chocolate brigadeiro. It is entirely possible to use brigadeiro as frosting for cake, and the results are amazing.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, brazilian
Keyword cake, chocolate, coconut
Prep Time 2 hourshours
Cook Time 30 minutesminutes
Total Time 2 hourshours30 minutesminutes
Servings 10people
Calories 249kcal
Author Camila Hurst
Ingredients
Chocolate Cake
1 1/2cupsall-purpose flour183 grams
1/2cupunsweetened cocoa powder60 grams
1 1/2tspbaking powder
1tspbaking soda
3/4tspfine sea salt
1tspespresso powderoptional* read notes
1/2cupvegetable oil112 grams
1cupssugar200 grams
2large eggsroom temperature
2tspvanilla extract
2/3cupsour cream160 grams
2/3cuphot brewed coffee157 grams *read notes
Chocolate Brigadeiro
3-14 ozcanssweetened condensed milk1188 grams
3tbspunsalted butter
1cupheavy cream
1 1/4cupchocolate chips or chopped chocolate
Coconut Brigadeiro
2- 14 ozcanssweetened condensed milk792 grams
1cupshredded coconut can be sweetened or unsweetened
2tbspbutter
1/2cupheavy cream
Instructions
Chocolate Cake
This recipe makes for 4-6” round cakes, or 2-8” round cakes.
Pre-heat oven to 350Fº.
Grease 4-6″ cake pans and place a parchment paper circle in the bottom of pans. Grease the parchment. You can use spray oil or butter to grease the pans. Set aside.
Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder, if using. Set aside.
Add the sour cream, eggs, oil, coffee, and vanilla extract to a bowl and whisk until combined.
Add the sugar along with the dry ingredients (flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and espresso).
Whisk until incorporated, and a smooth batter is formed.
Pour the batter evenly onto baking pans.
Bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 min. After the 12 minute mark, keep checking regularly, because you don’t want to burn your cakes or over bake them. Remove them from the oven once a toothpick comes out clean once inserted in the cake.
Once you remove it from the oven, wait 10 minutes, flip cakes onto a cookie cooling rack and let the cakes cool.
Once cool, wrap each layer individually in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use. I like to leave my layers in the fridge for quite a bit so they can firm up and make it easier to assemble and decorate the cake.
Chocolate Brigadeiro
To make the brigadeiro, place the sweetened condensed milk, butter, heavy cream, and chocolate in a small saucepan.
Cook over medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring nonstop. If you stop stirring, the fudge will stick to the bottom of the pan. Cook until the mixture is thick and fudgy and you can see the bottom of the pan when you run the spatula through the middle of the fudge. Remove to a bowl and let it cool completely.
Don’t place it in the fridge before filling and frosting the cake, or the fudge will get too hard to be piped. The fudge can be kept at room temperature, covered, for up to 1 day.
Coconut Brigadeiro
Mix all ingredients: sweetened condensed milk, shredded coconut, butter, and heavy cream in a medium saucepan.
Over medium heat, stir the mixture without stopping, while you bring it to a boil.
Once the mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium low.
Keep stirring non stop while it cooks.
Don’t stop stirring the mixture, or the fudge will stick to the bottom of the pan.
You should cook it for about 10 to 15 minutes. The longer you cook, the thicker it will become.
To test if the fudge is ready, simply tilt the pan and if the mixture comes off from the bottom of the pan, you’re good to go. The fudge will look shiny and firm, it will drop in chunks from the spatula and not in a ribbon. If you run a spatula on the bottom of the pan, fudge will take about 5 seconds to come together again. You are looking for a very thick stage, but be careful not to overcook it, if you do overcook it, it will become super hard as it cools down.
Remove the fudge to a buttered plate and let it cool down to room temperature. Don’t place it in the fridge or it will become too hard. The fudge can stay at room temperature for one to two days.
To assemble the cake
Place the cake on a cake board. Trim the top to level the cake.
I actually started brushing the cake with milk, because that’s how we used to make this cake back in Brazil, but I gave up on the brushing for the next layers, because the cake was already super moist, so I figured I’d skip the milk brushing. You can always brush your cakes with a simple syrup or milk if you want to.
Pipe the brigadeiro around the edges of the cake. Then fill the center with the coconut brigadeiro. Place another layer on top and repeat.
Put the cake in the fridge for at least 30 minutes before frosting, that will help keep the cake sturdy because the brigadeiro is not a super soft frosting like buttercream for example, so you want the filling to be somewhat cold and solid.
Use a spatula to spread the brigadeiro around the cake. Use a bench scraper to smooth out the cake. I used my offset spatula and held it on the side of the cake horizontally and spun the cake around to form the decoration on the side of the cake. Since it’s super hard to smooth out the brigadeiro completely, this helped with the looks of the cake.
On top, I piped some brigadeiro and topped with some rolled out coconut brigadeiro balls.
I also made mini cakes, using the exact same recipe, but baked in a small pan. I decorated pretty much the same way, but I didn’t frost the mini cakes on the outside, I just kept it a naked cake, with the brigadeiro piped into dots around the edges for decoration purposes, I thought it looked super cute this way.
Storage
Store the cake in the fridge for up to 5 days and in the freezer for up to 2 months. Keep the cake covered in a container to prevent it from drying out.
Notes
Espresso powder: if using the coffee in the recipe, you can skip the espresso powder. Or you can skip the espresso and coffee altogether and just use the hot water instead if you don't want to add any coffee to the cake. The cake won't taste like coffee, this is just to help deepen the chocolate taste.Coffee: you can use hot water instead of coffee in this recipe.