This cocktail-inspired cake tastes like a tropical vacation! The coconut-lime-tequila glaze gives this cake margarita flavor and a wet texture inside. Serve it at room temperature, or chilled on a hot day.This recipe uses unsweet full fat canned coconut milk. One 13.5 oz. can will give you more than the 1 ¼ cups needed for the cake batter and glaze. Freshly squeezed limes are preferred for the lime juice in this recipe, but bottled lime juice can also be used. My batch of limes were extremely dry inside, so I had to resort to bottled juice. Use Nellie and Joe's Key West Lime juice, if you ca find it, or ReaLime which is widely available.This recipe yields a little more than 6 cups of cake batter.
Three six-inch round cake pans or two nine-inch cake pans
Bamboo skewer
Large sheet pan
large closed star piping tip
Piping bag
Ingredients
Cakes
1cupunsalted butter
2cupssugar
4largeeggs
2tablespoonslime juice
2 ½cupsall-purpose flour
½teaspoonfine grain sea salt
1teaspoonbaking soda
½teaspoonbaking powder
1cupfull fat coconut milkunsweet canned
Coconut-lime margarita glaze
1cupnonfat Greek yogurt
1cupgranulated sugar
Zest of 2 limes
1/4cuplime juice
1/4cupfull fat coconut milkunsweet canned
1cupunsweetened flake coconut
3tablespoonswhite tequilaor more to taste
2tablespoonstriple sec or other orange liqueuror more to taste
Lime buttercream frosting
1 ½cupsunsalted butterat room temperature
5cupsconfectioners’ sugar
2tablespoonslime juice
Milk or creamto thin
Chefmaster neon green food color
2/3cupSwedish pearl sugar
6fresh lime wheelsfrom one large lime
1/4cupUnsweet coconut chips
Instructions
For the cakes
Preheat the oven to 350F.
Grease three 6-inch round cake pans and line the bottoms with parchment paper. see notes for 9-inch pans.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Add lime juice and mix until combined.
In a separate mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Whisk to combine.
Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with the coconut milk. Begin and end with flour.
Divide the batter evenly between the pans, about 2 cups per pan. Smooth evenly into the pans. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until a toothpick tester inserted near the center comes out clean. This cake has high sugar content and will brown quickly. Cover cakes with foil the last 15 minutes of baking if cakes begin to overbrown.
Let cakes cool in the pans 5 minutes, then turn out onto wire racks. Cool 10 more minutes. Cakes should still be slightly warm. Cover a large sheet pan with aluminum foil and transfer the cakes to the pan.
Glaze
In a large mixing bowl, combine the yogurt, sugar, lime zest, lime juice, coconut milk, flake coconut, tequila and triple sec. Whisk together until well combined, about 5 minutes. Taste-test the glaze and adjust the spirits to your liking.
Poke holes all over the surface of the cakes and spread on half of the glaze. Let stand at room temperature 10 minutes. Flip cakes and poke holes in the other side; spread on the remaining glaze. Let stand 10 minutes at room temperature, then cover with aluminum foil and refrigerate until the cakes are completely cooled, about 1 hour.
Buttercream
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whip attachment, beat together the butter and confectioners’ sugar. Add the lime juice. Beat in milk or cream a little at a time until the mixture comes to spreading consistency. Beat until the frosting is light and fluffy, and almost white in color, about 5 minutes.
Remove 1 cup of the white frosting to a piping bag fitted with the large closed star tip. Set aside.
Tint the remaining frosting with the neon green food color. Add color a little at a time until a vibrant green hue is achieved.
Assembly
Place a cake layer on a serving plate or cake board. Cakes will have coconut sticking to all sides – just leave this on the cake. Top the cake layer with ¼ inch lime green frosting. Top with the second cake layer and top with another ¼ inch of lime green frosting. Top with the remaining cake and apply a thick layer of frosting to the outside and top of the cake. Smooth the frosting using a cake smoother or bench scraper.
Immediately after frosting, press Swedish pearl sugar onto the top edge of the cake. Scoop excess pearl sugar up and press against the bottom edge of the cake.
Using the reserved piping bag of white buttercream, pipe six large swirls on the top edge of the cake. Immediately sprinkle on more pearl sugar. Place a lime wheel between each buttercream swirl. Sprinkle coconut chips over the top of the cake to finish.
Serve cake at room temperature or chilled. Because of the cake’s wet texture, it’s great both ways!
Notes
What to expect: This cake is loaded with coconut lime flavor. It has a wet interior due to the glaze that saturates into the crumb. The glaze has a shot of tequila and triple sec, which adds margarita flavor without giving it an overly boozy note. Add more liquor to taste, if you prefer a more pronounced tequila flavor.This cake has high sugar content, which means it will form a deep brown crust during baking. This is normal, and helps the cake hold together after being poked full of holes and drenched with glaze.If using 9-inch round cake pans, decrease bake time to 28-30 minutes.Liquors can be omitted for a non-alcoholic version and the cake will still be totally delicious!This cake recipe is adapted from Doreen Howarth's "Lime in the Coconut Cake" which won Food Network's Ultimate Recipe Showdown: Cakes. You can find her original recipe right here.