Coconut Cake frosted with Cocoa Buttercream

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This yellow coconut cake is perfect for any large parties like birthday celebrations or baby showers. The best thing about it is that there is nothing in there to make you feel guilty of eating it!

Slice of coconut cake with cocoa buttercream

 

The soft yellow cake is sweetened with honey, a natural sweetener. Between the layers you will find rich and fluffy cocoa buttercream frosting that is simply addictive. By using coconut flour instead of regular white flour, your cake will be denser and have more depth. The coconut flour also means that this cake is much richer in fiber than a regular cake. It will fill you up quickly so don’t cut the pieces too big!

Cakes from boxes don’t even compare to this one! I feel sorry for my younger self for having to grow up eating store-bought cake mixes. But I am more than glad to make up for this now, as I enjoy every little piece of this delicious coconut cake. And I’m even more glad that my kids get to taste how real food tastes like before they are old enough to get addicted to unhealthy commercial sweeteners found in supermarket foods.

I based my recipe on Jenna’s coconut cake which you can find here. I tweaked a few ingredients to my liking and I’m very pleased with the results; I heard only rave reviews about this one and my kids even prefer it over double chocolate cake! If that’s not a good endorsement then I don’t know what is.

Necessary equipment:

  • two round cake pans
  • parchment paper
  • three large mixing bowls
  • a hand mixer OR a stand mixer
  • a cooling rack
  • optional: a cake stand
  • optional: a frosting spatula

Cocoa Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup of butter at room temperature (about two sticks) *Make your own butter
  • 2/3 cup of cocoa powder
  • 1/2 cup of honey
  • 2 T. of brewed coffee, cooled
  • 2 t. of vanilla extract

Instructions:

  1. Whisk the butter and honey with a mixer on a high speed setting. You should get a light-colored soft mixture in three to five minutes.
  2. Add in the cocoa powder, coffee, and vanilla extract.
  3. Continue whisking. First at low speed and then again on high speed for another three minutes.
  4. Your frosting is now almost done. Scrape the sides of the bowl if you need to and chill the frosting (in the mixing bowl) in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
  5. Take out of the fridge and whisk one last time for three minutes. Frost the cake immediately.

*I like to use a small amount of coffee in recipes which use chocolate or cocoa. It’s completely optional but it makes the chocolate flavor ‘pop’ by giving it more depth. Weak coffee is okay even on GAPS. If you can’t or don’t want to drink coffee for some reason then you can also use a coffee substitute, like Teeccino or Dandy Blend. Just remember that they both contain grains which you should ingest when on GAPS.

Coconut flour cake

Ingredients:

  • 2 1/4 cup of milk (can be substituted with coconut milk if you are on GAPS)
  • 2 cups of flour
  • one dozen eggs
  • 3/4 cup of honey
  • 1 1/2 T. of vanilla extract
  • 1/2 t. of baking soda
  • 1/4 t. of sea salt

Instructions:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Butter your round cake pans and line the bottom with parchment paper cut to fit into the circle. Spread some butter on the cake pan to help the paper stick. Set aside for now.
  3. Mix all the eggs, milk, honey, and vanilla extract together in a large mixing bowl.
  4. In a separate bowl, whisk the coconut flour with baking soda and salt. Make the mixture as smooth as possible with no lumps.
  5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Use a mixer to fully combine them together.
  6. Pour the batter into your cake pans and bake in the oven for about 40 minutes OR until the edges turn slightly brown. You don’t want to overbake them because the cakes will then rise and be uneven.
  7. Cool the cake pans on a cooling rack. Once cooled, use a knife to carefully separate the cake from the sides of the pan.
  8. Put one of the cakes on top of another one with a layer of cocoa buttercream frosting between. Frost the entire cake with the remaining frosting.

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