This cake is the beautiful product of my childhood memories, and the teamwork between my husband and me. Growing up in Mexico, my family would always have a pineapple coconut cake during special occasions. This is a beloved cake in my family, and I wanted to recreate this with my husband hoping to keep the tradition alive. And while the steps, and notes are some of the longest you will see me post here, I promise you this cake is all worth it!
🥣 Cooking Time: 1hr & 30mins
🍲 Serves: 8-10
Ingredients
For the cake (makes one 9” cake) 2 cups of flour 1 teaspoon of salt 3½ teaspoons of baking powder 1 cup of sugar 8 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature 2 tablespoon of vegetable oil 3 large eggs at room temperature 1 teaspoon of vanilla 1 cup of milk at room temperature
For the filling (for 1 cake) ¾ cup of crushed pineapple ¼ cup of brown sugar ¼ cup of coconut milk ½ cup of milk ¼ cup of shredded coconut
For the buttercream (for 1 cake) 14 tablespoons of unsalted butter at room temperature 2½ cups of powder sugar 2-3 tablespoons of coconut milk ½ to 1 tsp coconut extract, to taste
2-6 Cups of shredded coconut (optional for decorating)
Directions
For the cake
1. Start by adjusting your oven rack to the middle of your oven. This will help the cake to cook evenly and prevent burning. Preheat oven to 325F.
2. Begin mixing your dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, except your sugar. Then, using a hand mixer or a stand mixer, beat the butter, oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth (about 2 minutes).
3. Add the eggs one by one, the vanilla extract, and the milk. Continue mixing on medium, while slowly adding the mixed dried ingredients until everything is incorporated.
4. Once your cake batter is ready, butter and flour a 9” round dark nonstick pan before pouring in batter. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick or knife inserted in center comes out clean.
5. Once the cake is done, allow the cake to cool for 45-60 minutes before cutting.
6. When the cake has completely cooled off, you can flatten the top by removing a couple inches if needed, then procced to cut it into 2 layers.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 if you want to make a cake with 4 layers.
For the filling
8. Using a saucepan over medium heat, add all ingredients and cook for at least 3 minutes. All ingredients should be incorporated infusing the milk with a sweet tropical flavor.
9. Once ready, remove from the stove and allow to cool, and refrigerate for 45-60 minutes while your cake cools off too.
10.If you are making a cake with 4 layers, double the amount of ingredients to prepare the filling.
For the buttercream
11. With the help of a hand mixer or a stand mixer, beat the butter until it starts to look creamy and pale.
12. With the mixer on low, slowly begin to add the powder sugar as well as 2 tablespoons of coconut milk and the coconut extract.
13.Once the powdered sugar is incorporated, turn your mixer to medium high to beat the ingredients together.
14.Continue beating until all sugar is incorporated and you have a light, creamy fluffy buttercream. If the buttercream is too thick, add 1 or more tablespoons of coconut milk, until you have the desired consistency. If the buttercream is too runny, add a small amount of additional powdered sugar (remember the buttercream needs to be light, and fluffy; not too thick, not too runny).
15.If you are making 4 layers of cake, you can double the amount of ingredients, or make as many batches of buttercream you want to decorate your cake.
Assembling the cake
16. Start by placing a small amount of frosting in the middle of the plate where your cake will sit; then place the first layer of cake on top. This is going to help your cake to stay in place, and allow you to decorate it without moving as you frost it.
17. Pipe frosting in a circle around the top of the first layer of cake, then proceed to add some of your filling in the middle, covering generously. Place another layer of your cake on top. Frosting a circle around the edge of each layer before adding the filling will prevent any filling coming from the side, and the frosting will secure the filling in the middle. If you are making 4 layers of cake, repeat this step for the next 2 layers (the top of your last layer will not have filling, in order to cover with buttercream frosting).
18.Proceed to start frosting your cake with buttercream, with the help of an icing spatula or even a butter knife until you have a smooth surface. You can finish decorating with coconut buttercream with any designs you like, if you only want to use buttercream. Otherwise, for a shaggy, coconutty exterior proceed to the next step.
19.If you are using shredded coconut to decorate the cake, pour several cups of shredded coconut into a bowl. Then, with clean hands, sprinkle the coconut shreds over the surface of the cake; lightly press the coconut into the frosting so the coconut sticks to the surface of the cake. If you only want buttercream on your cake, you can skip this step and proceed to the next.
20.Once your cake is done, refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before serving; this will allow the buttercream to set. Bon appétit!
Notes
Ingredient Temperatures Matter!
If you rather avoid making the cake from scratch, and opt to purchase a cake mix from the store, feel free to use any cake mix of your choice. There’s no shame in your game! I have done it plenty of times myself when I don’t have any flour to make my own, or simply because sometimes it’s more practical.
Now, if you want to make it from scratch you’ll notice that on the ingredients listed for the cake batter the butter, eggs, and milk need to be room temperature. You may wonder, does it matter? The answer is: YES, it does. It matters a lot!
I will admit that before this cake, I’d be just tossing ingredients together to make my cake, and never paid a lot of attention to the final result. Not even when I used store bought cake mix. Typically, if I’m baking any cake I try to have my ingredients out of the fridge a couple minutes before I start mixing anything. However, for this cake me and my husband decided to just bake everything in a hurry, and didn’t allow the ingredients to sit long enough outside of the fridge. We were not surprised to find the butter was resisting as we tried to cream it with sugar, and the batter was quite lumpy; but we decided to commit with what we had and move forward. After all, we figured the butter would eventually melt while baking, and the milk and eggs would cook anyway. We were so wrong. Yes, the butter melted, and the milk and eggs cooked; but we ended up with one of the densest cakes we’ve ever made.
When we first took it out the oven the cake looked great, and we could hardly tell or see all the flaws it had. It was the second we took it out the pan we could clearly see where the tiny lumps of butter sunk at the bottom not melting evenly. When we tasted the cake, it was not unpleasant but we knew we could’ve done better. The flavor was there, but the texture was off; it was coarse, leaving a heavy mouthfeel. It was a disappointment. We learned the hard way that science matters. No one is above the laws of science, not even cake. 🍰
Another important thing to note is making sure you don’t overmix your cake batter. Often times when making cake batter, we make this a quick step, and hardly ever overmix. However, if for some reason you ever step out of the kitchen for even 5 minutes, leaving your mixer to continue mixing, this will also affect the texture of your cake. And while overmixing hardly ever happens, know that this step is also a very important part of the process when making a cake. Once you have all ingredients mixing together, make sure you don’t get distracted or carried away because overmixing will also make your cake very dense. So, please, PLEASE, make sure your ingredients are room temperature before mixing; and make sure you’re watching your cake batter, and not overmix.
The verdict:
As we made notes and some research to fix our mistakes, we came across THE CAKE BLOG. This blog is run by a wonderful community of bakers and cake makers who share valuable, and great information about anything you need to know about cake. This amazing blog confirmed many of the things we noted went wrong, and thoroughly explained the science behind them. If this is your first time making your cake batter completely from scratch, I highly recommend you to read these two very helpful posts below from THE CAKE BLOG and follow them for more tips and tricks!
Your Oven Temperature Matters too!
The temperature of the oven will also depend on the type of baking pan you are using to bake the cake batter. After trials to get this homemade batter to cook right, turns out the good old cake mix instructions from most boxes were right.
If you are baking with a dark nonstick pan, heat will be absorbed faster than if you use a shiny metal pan. If we recall some of the physics we learned in school, turns out that dark colors can absorb more heat compared to light colors (even bright or phosphorescent colors). In conclusion, if you ever used cake mix from a box follow their baking temperature instructions when baking this batter:
· 350F if you use a shiny metal
· 325F if you use a dark nonstick pan
Have Fun!
If you have made it this far, and haven’t run and said "Forget this!", thank you! 😂 I know the notes on this recipe might look like a long essay, but I hope you find them helpful as you bake this or any other cake recipe you come across. I made these notes intentionally this long to share the new knowledge, as well as my mistakes.
Cooking and baking overall is a constant work in progress, and it’s okay to fail. Sometimes we need to fail while experimenting with new techniques, or trying out new recipes, or even new ingredients. The most important advice I can give you here is to stay positive no matter what; always remember good lessons will come out from something that goes horribly wrong. Have fun! Even if the final results don’t look the way you hoped for, or if the taste is a bit off! If no one wants to eat it, feed it the birds or the racoons! But don’t give up! Life is way too short, and there’s plenty of flour out there to keep trying!
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