Coconut Christmas Cake

Seeing as I’ve enjoyed all of my Christmases in the Southern Hemisphere, I’ve never had the pleasure of experiencing a White Christmas. It’s interesting — and difficult — to  find a balance between the two types of festive seasons. While northerners are wearing ugly sweaters and drinking hot cocoa by the fireplace, us southerners are showing off our Christmas guts at the beach.

Leading up to Christmas, I really wanted to create something that’s relevant to both halves of the world. So what could be more perfect than a Coconut Christmas Cake? It’s perfect for northerners because it looks like a Winter Wonderland. Yet the tropical taste of coconut is perfect for the southerner’s warmer weather!

Ingredients

Coconut Cake

• 125g butter
• 1/3 cup coconut rum
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (40g) desiccated coconut
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 250g light sour cream

Coconut Icing

• 3/4 cup butter
• 10 tablespoons canned coconut cream
• 4 cups icing sugar

Decoration

• White chocolate cooking buttons
• Green and blue food colouring
• Silver cachous
• Desiccated coconut

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Grease a cake pan and line base with baking paper.
2. Beat butter, rum, caster sugar and eggs in an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
3. Transfer mixture into a large bowl. Along with the coconut and sour cream, sift the self-raising flour and stir until smooth.
4. Pour mixture into the pan and bake for about 50 minutes. Stand cake in pan for 10 minutes before turning onto wire rack, top-side up, to cool down.
5. In a separate bowl, combine butter, coconut cream and 2 cups of icing sugar. Beat in an electric mixer until combined and creamy. Add the remaining icing sugar 1 cup at a time.
6. Spread icing over cake.
7. Melt white chocolate cooking melts for 1 minute and stir. Continue heating in 30 second intervals, stirring as needed. Meanwhile line a baking tray with baking paper.
8. Add green and blue dye to melted chocolate and stir until you reach the desired colour. Keep in mind, the more food colouring you add, the quicker it sets.
9. Arrange skewers on baking tray and drizzle melted chocolate across to form a Christmas tree. Sprinkle silver cachous while chocolate is still melted.
10. Place baking tray in fridge until the chocolate has set.
11. To serve, insert chocolate Christmas trees and sprinkle with coconut.

Keep in mind, I doubled this recipe to form the two layers. Initially I was ambitious and was aiming for three until I realised Kyal and I would have to eat it all in a matter of days. While the final product was an accidental collaboration of drip icing meets naked icing, I’m really happy with the final result. Besides, how it tastes is way more important than how it looks (and PSA — it tastes incredible!)

Do you have a favourite Christmas dessert you’re planning to create (and enjoy!) in the next few weeks? Let me know in the comments!