Diet Killers: Recipes for Readers – Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chips and Coconut Drizzle from Molly MacRae

 

Comfort food and good humor are a great combination in the real world and in books. Korina Moss dishes up both in her wonderful Cheese Shop Mystery series. The books have everything I look for in a cozy mystery, starting with the punny titles—Cheddar Off Dead, Gone for Gouda, Curds of Prey, Case of the Bleus, Fondue or Die and Bait and Swiss. The stories take place in a town I’d happily move to—Yarrow Glen in California’s Sonoma Valley—and Moss has created a smart, likeable protagonist in cheesemonger Willa Bauer. I love cheese possibly more than I love chocolate and that puts Willa at idol status for me. Another plus for the series is the section of cheese-centric recipes at the back of each book.

Here’s a sad pickle, though. Willa isn’t allergic to chocolate but she doesn’t eat it. What?!? Why ever not? You’ll find out when you read the books. Readers are in luck,

too. Bait and Swiss, book six in the series, comes out in a matter of weeks—April 29.  

Personal note to Willa: I feel so bad pairing your stories with a cake littered with chocolate chips. But the cake is good, Willa, and you’re resourceful, so maybe you can eat around the chocolate chips? If that’s a hard no way, let me know, and I’ll make one without the chocolate chips. You’re a cheesemonger so I would do that for you.

 

Coconut Cake with Chocolate Chips and Coconut Drizzle

(Adapted from Julie Richardson in Bon Appétit, January 2010)

 

Cake ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk

6 ounces chocolate chips

1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut

 

Coconut drizzle ingredients

3/4 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons (or more) canned unsweetened coconut milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Generously butter (or spray with cooking oil) a 9-inch springform pan.

In a medium bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Stir in unsweetened shredded coconut. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with coconut milk in 2 additions, beating until blended after each addition. Fold in half the chocolate chips.

Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Sprinkle remaining chocolate chips over batter, then sprinkle with sweetened coconut flakes.

Bake until golden and tester inserted in center comes out clean, tenting with foil if coconut on top of the cake is browning too quickly, 60 to 70 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack for 45 minutes. Remove springform band and transfer cake to plate or platter to cool completely.

Coconut Drizzle directions

In a small bowl, combine powdered sugar, the 2 tablespoons of unsweetened coconut milk, and vanilla and whisk well, adding more coconut milk by 1/2 teaspoonfuls until mixture is thin enough to drizzle.

When cake is completely cool, use a small spoon to artfully drizzle cake with powdered sugar mixture. Serve.