TWD Coconut Milk Chocolate Marble Cake

 

Last year I bought a long out of print edition of Baking with Julia. I've made a few recipes from it; I've also stood in my kitchen kicking and cursing myself for deciding to make puff pastry from scratch during my lunch break in my home kitchen with two toddlers in tow. But never one to learn any lessons, not even the hard way, I decided to try the yogurt tart which I had clocked many moons ago as something that may be quite reasonable and simple. You see, two years ago I planted over 8 raspberry bushes and if you know anything about raspberry plants, you'll know that 2 years is enough to have an entire forest of raspberries. They clearly required a sweetened caramelized yogurt pedestal for display.

Upon searching the internet for this recipe to see if anyone else ever attempted it, I was astounded to discover this little community called Tuesdays with Dorie. A group of ambitious bakers who have been assembled since 2008 (when I was in middle school!) and have spent every Tuesday baking a recipe from one Dorie Greenspan's books. The group has ballooned and shrank through the years, but it seems like fate that they are now working through the very two Dorie books I just bought. Am I already overtaxed? Yes. Am I joining anyways? Yes. We will see how often I can participate. At the very least, I can promise to fulfill the month of August.

Being me, I also completely read the schedule wrong. This last weekend I gathered the ingredients to make the coconut marble cake and I blocked my lunch hour off today. By the time I was finished baking this and writing my notes, I rushed to my computer to realize that...I was an entire week off and made the wrong bake. This week was the Breton Buckwheat Butter Cake!

So, I did the rational thing and took another 45 minutes to make a second cake.

Look, my 4-year-old isn't going to complain. Besides there are two women in the neighborhood who just had babies who I think would love a sampler of cakes delivered to their door this evening.

So, let's start documentation with my misbegotten Coconut-Milk-Chocolate Marble Cake. I wasn't actually enthusiastic with this being my first bake. I never liked marbling, I hate working with chocolate, and I had reservations on if the coconut would come through. I was very pleasantly surprised by how quickly it came together though! It also gave me an excuse to use my spatterware loaf pan I thrifted long ago.

What did not bring me joy was my Ankarsrum mixer dying the moment I turned it on. Luckily, it's still under warranty and my mother, bless her soul, taught me how to properly beat butter and sugar by hand when I was younger. So, I proceeded just as my ancestors did, with elbow grease (it truly wasn't that bad). I did take pause because there is such a large variation in sizes of shredded coconut. I went ahead with the finest one I had because it was also the freshest.

The house truly smelled amazing. Altogether, from whisk to oven, it took about 35 minutes. I love having a slow and low bake while I work, the aroma is such a good motivator. It has a wonderful crust and a great spongey texture. I would say that there is not a strong coconut flavor, nor would anyone realize there is shredded coconut in here, chocolate is the dominate flavor. But it does retain an aroma of coconut. If I wanted to amp up the coconut, I would replace the butter in the chocolate with coconut oil and I would also use coconut extract.

Bonus picture of aforementioned yogurt tart