Oh, what a great Easter I had! Even if Melbourne let us a bit down with the weather (rain, rain, rain), we had a fantastic break catching up with friends, visiting family and of course, gobbling chocolate non stop! ;D

On Easter Sunday, we always go to my partner’s family house and this time I was in charge of the cake (cue happy dance and squeals here!). I wanted to have a fresh take on a chocolate cake. Something chocolate-y but a bit more unique so I came up with the tropical chocolate cake! It’s a chocolate cake with layers of coconut and pineapple cream!! Sounds strange? Well, it was definitely a happy surprise for the guests! The cake was a mix between a Bounty candy bar and a piña colada cocktail and it got a lot of compliments.

Tropical Easter cake recipe

Ingredients:

– 2 boxes of chocolate cake mix (I didn’t have time to make my own so I bought a staple: Betty Crocker’s) and whatever you need to make them (eggs and milk usually)

– 1 tin of pineapple

– 1 can of coconut cream

– 250gr of butter

– 600gr of icing sugar

– 200gr of dark chocolate

– 3 table spoons of heavy cream

– Assorted Easter eggs (if it’s Easter! if not you can just skip this step or decorate with some tropical flowers)

1. Bake the cakes and let them cool down. Cut them in half horizontally

2. Mix the sugar and butter until you get a fluffy buttercream. Then divide it into three parts.

3. I chose to make my cake with two layers of coconut and one of pineapple but you could easily have a different combination. For the coconut icing, I added the coconut cream to 2 of those three parts (don’t use coconut milk or it will end up too runny). If you want a stronger coconut flavour you could use artificial flavour or coconut flakes.

4. For the pineapple icing: I  crushed the pineapple and carefully squeezed out all the liquid, then I mixed it into the icing. At the beginning it didn’t blend well so I ended up using the food processor to get a smoother finish. Next time I might try just chopping the pineapple and using a whipped cream layer instead of the buttercream…

5. Start building your layers! Put one layer of cake, one layer of coconut frosting, another cake, then the pineapple frosting, etc until you are done with the 4 layers. Place it in the fridge.

6. While the cake is chilling, I melted the chocolate with the cream in a sauce pan and let it cool for a little. When it was more “gooey” than liquid, I took the cake out and poor the ganache over it with a spoon, particularly around the edges to get lots of drips around the cake.

7. Finally, place some eggs on top of the cake or any other decoration. Next time, I’ll be using some gum paste flowers and party umbrellas to give it a more tropical look.