Coconut & Pineapple

This tropical cake will transport you to a beach holiday, laying in the sun, sipping on Pina Coladas. A light Coconut Chiffon is layered with marshmallowy Swiss Meringue and a comforting Pineapple Compote to create the most incredible flavour sensation. Forget the days of overly sweet cakes, this combo certainly 'takes the cake'!

---

Coconut & Pineapple

Prep Time - 1hr 30 minsmins

Yield - 20cm Cake

Cooking time - 30-45mins

Ingredients

Coconut Chiffon

• 200g (4) Eggs

• 300g Castor Sugar

• 300g Cake Flour

• 15ml Baking Powder

• 5ml Salt

• 170g Coconut Milk

• 170g Water

• 70g Vegetable oil

• 5ml Vanilla

• 80g Desiccated Coconut

Pineapple Compote

• 300g Fresh Pineapple

• 100g Brown Sugar

• 30ml Pineapple Juice

• 5ml Vanilla

Swiss Meringue

• 450g Castor Sugar

• 230g Egg Whites

• 2g Salt

• 5ml Vanilla *Optional

Additional Ingredients

• Fresh Pineapple Slices

• Toasted Coconut

• Chocolate Coconuts (Tutorial on my instagram)

• Pineapple Leaves

Method

For the Coconut Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C

2. Line the baking tins with greaseproof paper.

3. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until foamy and slowly add the castor sugar. Whisk to sabayon. This is when the mixture becomes light and airy, triples in volume, and can hold a figure 8 for 5 seconds.

4. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a separate bowl. Carefully fold this into the egg mixture.

5. Bring the milk, oil, vanilla and water to the boil in a small pot. Remove from the heat.

6. Fold the wet ingredients into the mixture in 3 stages, mixing until just combined.

7. Fold in the desiccated coconut.

8. Divide the mixture into your tins, bake until light golden brown. +- 30-45 mins on until a skewer comes out cleanly.

9. Remove from the oven, cool in the tins for 5 mins.

10. Place onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For the Pineapple Compote

1. Cut the pinapple into small pieces. The smaller your pieces, the quicker they will cook down. You can also use tinned pineapple if you want, you may need to reduce the amount of sugar.

2. Add the pineapple, sugar, juice, and vanilla to a small pot over medium heat.

3. Bring to the boil and boil for 2 minutes

4. Cook the compote until all the sugar is dissolved and the pineapple pieces are nice and soft.

5. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

For the Swiss Meringue

1. Combine egg whites and sugar in a heat proof bowl.

2. Place on a double boiler and heat until the egg whites reach 70°C and all the sugar is dissolved. This kills any bacteria present in the egg whites and makes it safe for consumption. Make sure the bottom of the bowl isn't touching the water. Stir regularly to ensure that the mixture heats even

3. Remove the mixture from the heat and pour into a cool bowl, add the salt.

4. Whisk on medium speed until cooled to room temperature, if you vanted to colour or flavour the meringue, now would be the time.

5. Place into a piping bag, ready for use.

Assembly

1. Level your cakes and cut each layer in half, forming 4 cake layers

2. Spread a layer of Swiss meringue on one of the cake layers. This will prevent the filling from seeping into the cake and making it soggy.

3. Pipe a ring of Swiss meringue around the top of one of the layer. I piped dollops, as I knew that it would be visible from the outside.

4. Fill the centre with the Pineapple compote and top with the next layer of cake.

5. Repeat for the remaining layers.

6. You can go ahead and frost the outside of the cake if you wish, I liked the look of the Swiss Meringue peeking through the layers.

Garnishing

1. Pipe some swirls of Meringue on the top of the cake. I used my favourite Wilton 1M star tip.

2. Sprinkle the swirls with some Toasted coconut and top with the pineapple slices, leaves, and chocolate coconuts.