Bon Appétit used to be my favorite food magazine, but it’s defunct now, sigh. But it lives on in all the recipes I’ve made, loved, saved, and reposted! Here’s one of my favorites 🙂

This recipe is for a very nice cake—it’s not a big gooey layer cake with a lot of frosting. It’s a one layer cake rich with coconut, bittersweet chocolate chunks, the grated peel of a whole orange, and a yummy coconut drizzle. It’s delicious.

Coconut Cake with Chocolate and Orange Zest

INGREDIENTS

For Cake

• 1¾ cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup shredded coconut
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons finely grated orange peel (peel from one orange)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (or coconut extract)
• 1 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate (use bars and break into ½” irregular pieces), divided use
• Extra ½ cup shredded coconut for topping

For Coconut Drizzle

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons (or more) canned unsweetened coconut milk
• 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

DIRECTIONS

Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Generously butter 9″ cake pan with 2″ high sides.
3. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into medium bowl. Stir in shredded coconut and set aside.
4. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, and orange peel in large bowl until light and fluffy.
5. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
6. Beat in vanilla or coconut extract.
7. Add 1/3 flour mixture, beat until blended, then ½ coconut milk, then 1/3 flour, then ½ coconut milk, then last 1/3 flour mixture, beating just until blended after each addition.
8. To make the chocolate chunks, leave the chocolate in wrappers and bang with a meat mallet.
9. Fold 4 oz of bittersweet chocolate pieces—one entire bar—into batter.
10. Spread batter evenly in prepared cake pan.
11. Sprinkle remaining chocolate pieces—½ a bar—over the top of the batter, then sprinkle with an additional ½ cup coconut.
12. Bake cake until golden and tester inserted into center comes out clean, tenting with sheet of foil if coconut atop cake is browning too quickly—60 to 70 minutes.
13. Transfer cake to rack and cool in pan 45 minutes.

Coconut Drizzle

1. Whisk powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons coconut milk, and coconut extract in small bowl to blend well, adding more coconut milk by ½ teaspoonfuls until mixture is thin enough to drizzle over cake.
2. Remove cake from pan and drizzle with glaze. Do not over drizzle.
3. Cool cake completely on platter.

Cake can be made up to 1 day ahead. Cover cake and let stand at room temperature.

Thanks for being a fan!