Chocolate Layer Cake with Coconut Pecan Frosting

Name: Chocolate Layer Cake with Coconut Pecan Frosting
Yield: Serves 12
Ingredients: 1/4 cup, natural cocoa powder; 2 teaspoons, instant espresso powder, or instant coffee; 1/3 cup, boiling water; 2 teaspoons, vanilla extract; 1/3 cup, plain yogurt, nonfat, or buttermilk; 12 tablespoons, unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened; 1 1/4 cups, granulated sugar; 3 , large eggs, at room temperature; 1 1/4 cups, unbleached all-purpose flour; 1/2 teaspoon, baking soda; 1/2 teaspoon, table salt; 4 , egg yolks; 1 cup, granulated sugar; 1/4 teaspoon, table salt; 8 tablespoons, unsalted butter (1 stick), softened; 1 cup, heavy cream; 1 teaspoon, vanilla extract; 1 1/2 cups, pecans, toasted; 7 ounces, sweetened flaked coconut, about 2 cups lightly packed

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Appears in Cook's Illustrated July/August 1994

Desserts or Baked Goods

Chocolate

Cakes

Starting with a Velvet Devil's Food Cake, the author tests each ingredient to produce the best six chocolate cake recipes, from a sour cream layer cake to a low-fat, low-guilt variation.

SERVES12

TIME2 hours, plus 2 hours 40 minutes cooling

WHY THIS RECIPE WORKS

While developing our chocolate layer cake recipe we found very little difference between cakes baked with standard American cocoa and “Dutched” cocoa. We chose water over milk or buttermilk to moisten our cake batter, discovering that cakes...

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