Layers of rich, dark chocolate cake, with a silky-smooth sweetened condensed milk frosting, and toasted coconut for the perfect crunch—this is the perfect Chocolate Coconut Torte Cake!
This post is sponsored by Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk, but reflects my honest opinion of Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk.
Let me tell you about this cake
I’ll be honest, I am usually the type of person that wants everything super sweet and I want an insane amount of frosting on my cake—you know that grocery store cake corner piece with the two inches of frosting on it—yeah, I want that one. But this naked cake? INSANE. It’s unreal how obsessed I am with this cake.
It’s a combination of all the flavors and textures here that really make this cake work! The cake is dark and moist, and the Russian buttercream (a.k.a. the sweetened condensed milk buttercream frosting mentioned above) is not overly sweet but it SO SILKY SMOOTH, and the toasted coconut? YOU GUYS! I’m not sure I’ll ever love another cake this much again.
Happy National Coconut Torte Day!
March 13th is National Coconut Torte day, and I’m all about celebrating food-related holidays! Torte in German means cake and there are variations of this word across so many languages meaning the same thing:
- Torte—German
- Tarte—French
- Torta—Italian
- Tortes or Torta—Spanish
Now a traditional torte would call for ground nuts or bread crumbs in place of flour. But we’re taking some creative liberties here and we’re using flour. Just roll with it, It’s going to be delicious!
What is a Russian buttercream?
If you’ve never heard of a Russian buttercream frosting before, you’re not alone! This is honestly one of the least well-known buttercreams, at least in America that is. A Russian buttercream is also sometimes called a condensed milk frosting and that’s because it typically uses just two ingredients—butter and sweetened condensed milk.
You guys know I’m crazy about Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk I love the simplicity of it—milk and sugar—that’s it! Its always so smooth and perfect, and Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk is going to be our secret weapon to this amazing buttercream frosting.
So this frosting recipe may not be considered a true Russian buttercream because we add just a little bit of powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, and vanilla, just to really send this frosting over the top. But either way, I guarantee you are going to love it!
How to make this condensed milk buttercream
The first thing you want do is put your room temperature butter into your mixing bowl or stand mixer and start beating it! Please, please make sure your butter is room temperature, NOT MELTED!
How to tell if your butter is room temperature
If you’ve got know idea what I mean when I say your butter should be room temperature, here’s a simple test—your butter should be soft enough that you can push your finger into it and leave an indentation, but hard enough that your finger won’t mush right through the whole stick of butter, make sense?
The reason we want the butter room temperature and not any softer is we are trying to whip as much air as possible into our butter. This is going to give them sweetened condensed milk buttercream frosting its great texture and make sure that this frosting is not too loose.
So after you’re butter has been whipped for a good 4-5 minutes, it should be lighter in color and nice and fluffy, we’ll add in our Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk.
Add in the Sweetened Condensed Milk
Start by adding about ⅓ of your Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk, and then cream it together with the butter. You don’t want to add the whole thing right from the start or the sweetened condensed milk and butter will have a hard time incorporating. Once combined and smooth, add in your salt, vanilla, and an additional ⅓ of your sweetened condensed milk. Mix until smooth and then add in the remaining ⅓ of your can.
At this point if you’re happy with your frosting, feel free to stop, and you’ll have an authentic Russian buttercream frosting. But, I felt like it needed just a touch of powdered sugar. So add in ½-1 cup of sifted powdered sugar—this will give it just a little more sweetness and a little more body to the buttercream. If you find that frosting is too runny throw it in the fridge while you finish making everything else for the cake.
Toasting the Coconut
Toasting the coconut for this cake is super simple and essential for our chocolate COCONUT torte cake. Your oven was previously at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for the cakes, so drop that temperature down to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Spread your sweetened shredded coconut across your baking sheet and pop it into the oven for 5-10 minutes until its golden. Just watch it closely; it can go from golden to burned quickly!
How to make this cake if you only have 2 cake pans
This is obviously a three-layer cake, but if you do not have 3 cake pans, don’t stress! You can easily do this with two cake pans! Divide your batter into 3 and fill your two greased and parchment lined cake pans. Bake the two cakes, and when the cake is cool enough, remove it from the pan. Then reline the bottom of your cake pan and grease it, and add the remaining one-third of batter and bake according to instructions. The cake batter will hold at room temperature for 90 minutes.
How to assemble this Chocolate Coconut Torte Cake
Now that you’ve got all your elements ready to go, let’s assemble this cake! The beauty of this cake is that you don’t run into all the trickiness of crumb coating the cake and trying to get your frosting all smooth—this one is simple! If your cakes are domed at all in the middle, go ahead and level them off so your cakes will sit flat on top of each other and you won’t end up with a cake leaning one way or another.
Applying the Frosting
You have a couple of options when it comes to applying the frosting to this cake. I put my frosting into a piping bag so it was super easy to get an even layer all around, and then I piped some round dollops around the outside rim of the cake so they would just peek out when stacked. But Feel free to use a spatula or spoon to spread your frosting on. Spread about ⅓ of the frosting on the first layer and then top with about ⅓ of your toasted coconut, stack the next cake on top and repeat two more times. Top with blackberries if desired.
Happy baking and Happy Coconut Torte Day!
Enjoy!
Alyssa
You might also like these other indulgent desserts:
- Chocolate Meringue Torte
- Southern Chocolate Coca-Cola Cake
- Chocolate Raspberry Cake
- Blood Orange Fruit Tart
- Strawberry Shortbread Cake
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Chocolate Coconut Torte Cake
Ingredients
Devil’s Food Cake
- 1 ½ sticks butter
- 1 ½ cups water + 1 teaspoon vinegar see notes
- 1 cup 3 ounces of Dutch-processed cocoa powder (dark cocoa powder)
- 6 ounces about 1 ¼ cups 72% dark chocolate, finely chopped
- 2 cups brown sugar packed
- 1 tablespoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 6 eggs large
- 3 egg yolks large
- 2 cups flour measured correctly
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
Russian Buttercream Frosting (Condensed Milk Buttercream)
- 1½ cups of butter 3 sticks, room temperature
- 1-14 ounce can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
- ½-1 cup of powdered sugar sifted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- Pinch ⅛ teaspoon salt
Topping:
- 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
- 1 cup fresh blackberries optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Take 3 8-inch round pans, line the bottoms with parchment paper and spray with cooking spray. Set them aside for later.
- In a small pot over medium-low heat, add your water and butter. Once the two are melted and mixed together, remove from heat and whisk in your cocoa powder and chopped chocolate. Then add in your brown sugar, vanilla, and salt.
- In a large bowl, beat together your eggs and yolks. Slowly add it into your chocolate mixture a little at a time, mixing in between.
- Sift your baking soda and flour (make sure you have measured your flour properly--too much flour will ruin the recipe) and slowly add it in to your batter. Mix only until the flour is combined. Do not over mix.
- Divide the batter evenly between your 3 lined and greased pans (if you don’t have 3 pans, see notes). Bake for 25-30 minutes until you can gently push on the cake and it is soft but bounces back or when you insert a toothpick in the center is it is clean but has a few moist crumbs.
- Let the cakes cool in their pans for about an hour, use a knife to loosen edge of cakes before removing from pans. Let cakes cool completely before frosting.
Frosting, Topping, and Assembly
- Reduce temperature from 350 to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Spread your shredded coconut across a baking tray into a thin layer and bake 5-10 minutes until lightly golden. Cool coconut before assembling cake.
- n a large bowl or stand mixer, add your room temperature butter. Beat butter until it is light and fluffy and has paled in color (about 4 minutes). Then add in about ⅓ of your Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk. Cream the two together until they are completely homogenous.
- Add in your vanilla, salt, another ⅓ of your sweetened condensed milk. Mix together until smooth. Add in the remaining ⅓ of your can of sweetened condensed milk and ½ cup of powdered sugar, mix until smooth.
- If your frosting is too soft or not sweet enough you can add another ½ cup of powdered sugar. If your frosting is still too soft, place it in the fridge to chill until you are ready to frost your cakes.
- Once your cakes are cool you are ready to start assembling! If your cakes are domed in the center, take a serrated knife and level them off so they are completely flat.
- Spoon you frosting into a piping bag with a round tip and pipe about ⅓ of the frosting on top of your cake. Then generously sprinkle your toasted coconut on top of the frosting. Stack your second layer of cake on top and repeat the frosting and sprinkling of coconut with the next two layers. After you sprinkle coconut on the top layer, top with blackberries if desired.
Notes
tea. However, since I do not drink tea or coffee I used water plus a little
vinegar to help activate the baking soda. Feel free to use coffee or black tea in this recipe. The flavor of the coffee or tea should also help enhance the dark chocolate flavor. If you do not have 3 cake pans you can do this with two.
Divide your batter into 3 and fill your two cake pans. Bake the two cakes, and when the cake is cool enough, remove it from the pan. Then reline the bottom of your cake pan and grease it, and add the remaining one-third of batter and bake according to instructions.
Nutrition
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Linda
Do I use salted or unsalted butter? Can I bake the cakes a day ahead of time?
In Fine Taste
Hi Linda, you can use salted or unsalted butter in this recipe. I usually use salted, but I don't think you'll notice a huge difference in flavor if you use unsalted.
You can absolutely make the cakes ahead of time! After they cool just wrap them well in plastic wrap so they don't dry out. If you are trying to make them more than a day in advance I would recommend placing your wrapped cakes in the freezer to preserve freshness.
If you make it let me know how it turned out!
- Alyssa