Coconut Cake With Raspberry Buttercream And Toasted Meringue

Are you prepared to have your mind blown?

Like.... bells and whistles, stars and little birds flying in a circle above your head... mind blown?

Well then... read on my friends.

This cake is just ridiculous and is like 99.9% guaranteed to cause some degree of brain explosion.

So.... sorry but not sorry.

Coconut Cake with Raspberry Buttercream and Toasted Meringue

Ingredients

Cake

1 cup butter, softened

1 tsp coconut extract

2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 cup coconut, shredded

3 cups flour

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch salt

1 3/4 cup coconut Greek yogurt

2/3 cup cream

Raspberry Frosting

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

2 tsp vanilla

7 cups icing sugar

Meringue

1/2 cups egg white

1 cup sugar

pinch salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350. Line 3 - 8 inch pans with parchment paper and spray lightly with cooking spray, set aside.

Prepare cake - Beat butter, coconut extract, and sugar in a large bowl until smooth, scraping sides as necessary. Beat in eggs - one at a time - until well combined.

In a separate bowl, whisk together shredded coconut, flour, baking powder, and salt. 

Beat in half of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

Beat in half of the Greek yogurt and 1/2 of the cream.

Then add remaining dry ingredients, beat well, then add remaining Greek yogurt and cream and beat until smooth.

Spread evenly into the 3 prepared pans. Batter will be very thick. 

Bake at 350 until toothpick inserted near center of cakes comes out clean - about 30 - 40 minutes. Tops will be golden brown.

Let cool in pans about 10 minutes. Run a knife around the outer edge of the pan to loosen cakes. Invert onto wire racks and remove pans. Let cool completely. Chill in fridge until ready to frost. (Can be made ahead and frozen until ready to use.)

Prepare Buttercream - In a large mixing bowl, beat butter until smooth, scraping sides of bowl as necessary. Beat in raspberries until most of the berries are broken up. Don't worry if it looks like a disaster - it will become more smooth as you add the rest of the ingredients. 

Beat in the vanilla and then slowly start to add in the icing sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, scraping sides of bowl as needed, until frosting reaches a spreadable consistency. Chill until ready to use. 

Assemble Cake - Place one cake on a serving plate. Top with a generous scoop of the buttercream and spread to edges of cake. Top with second cake and more buttercream. Finish with the third cake but do not frost the top of the cake.

Generously frost the sides of the cake with the remaining buttercream. You may have  little bit left over. I used the little bit I had leftover to pipe a little decorative swirl around the base of the cake. I also put a VERY thin layer of frosting on top of the cake (but this is not necessary).

Chill cake until very cold - at least 2 hours.

When cake is thoroughly chilled - prepare meringue. 

Prepare Meringue - Whisk together egg whites, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer for about 1 minute.

Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water to form a double boiler. Scrape down the sides of the bowl so that all the sugar is off the sides of the bowl. Continue to stir the mixture until all the sugar is melted and you no longer feel any graininess when you rub a bit of it between your fingers - about 3 - 5 minutes.

Place the bowl back into the stand mixer and beat on high speed until the meringue forms thick and glossy peaks and the bowl is just above room temp - this can take up to 8 minutes. 

Pipe or spread the meringue on top of the chilled cake. 

Using a cooking torch, toast the meringue until it is nice and brown. Be careful to keep an eye on it so you don't burn it!

You may have some meringue leftover. You can always pipe this onto a cooking sheet covered with parchment paper and bake it at 250 for 2 hours to make meringue type cookies. 

Chill cake until ready to eat.

This cake not only looks beautiful but tastes amazing as well. The dense moist coconut cake pairs superbly with the tangy raspberry buttercream and the ooey gooey meringue. 

I made this for a birthday at my office but wasn't there to take a photo of the cut cake. I had a coworker take some photos and send them to me.

This would also be a perfect cake for Christmas dinner - the color of the raspberry buttercream would certainly fit the season. I'm thinking fresh berries in the summer would make this even better, if that is even possible. 

Definitely worth the effort to make. 

The raspberry buttercream is seriously some of the best frosting I have ever had!! 

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