Coconut and vanilla cream cake

Coconut and vanilla cream cake

This dessert is a well known cake recipe in East Europe. In Romania we use to prepare it for Easter, Christmas and other holidays or evenings and since I live in Emirates I prepare for every Muslim and Christian Holidays.
 For those who like vanilla cream and coconut this cake will make a mark in their life. Hope you will enjoy same as us. Do not get intimidate from the long ingredients, you can make it very easy following the recipe.
For the vanilla cream I used my recipe, only I changed some quantity of ingredients. The vanilla recipe you can find here :Homemade vanilla cream

Ingredients for vanilla cream :

7 yolks
3 tbsp flour
400 ml milk
250 gr unsalted butter (I use Lurpak)
180 gr icing sugar
6 gr vanilla powder or 2 tspn pure vanilla extract

Ingredients for cake for a 22*30 cm pan:
400 gr flour
160 gr icing sugar
170 gr unsalted butter on room temperature (I used Lurpak)
1,5 egg (1 white and 2 yolks)
1 tspn baking powder
1 tbsp plain yogurt
2,5 tspn cacao powder

Ingredients for the coconut cream:
8 white from the eggs (7 from the vanilla cream and one from the cacao batter)
280 gr coconut
150 gr icing sugar
1 pinch salt


1. In a bowl mix the cacao, baking powder and flour, add the unsalted butter and mix it well. You can mix in a blender or with your hands. Add the eggs, yogurt and sugar, mix it well. Add  a bit of extra flour if needed, until you get a not sticky dough. Form a ball from the dollop and place into fridge for 30 minutes, to chill down.

2. Preheat the oven to 200C.

3. For the coconut cream, whisk the egg whites together with a pinch of salt. Add the 140 gr icing sugar, whisk until the foam is soft (so that when you lift the whisk  peaks drop slightly). Carefully add the coconut and gently mix it a few times with a wooden spoon. Do not put the coconut mixture in fridge or in hot place.

4. Divide the batter ball in two. With floured rolling pin roll one of the ball and fit in the lightly greased pan, press firmly, pour the coconut filling onto. 

5. Roll out the other piece of batter and place over the filling, press firmly. Cut few slits in top to allow steam to escape.

6. Bake the cake for 35 minutes.

7. For the vanilla cream, warm the milk in a saucepan. Mix the yolks with flour and 2 tbsp from the warm milk until the mixture is completely smooth. Add the eggs mixture into the hot milk, stirring continue on low heat, remove from the heat a few times therefore the milk will be very hot and you will have omelette instead of cream. Stir it till you have a thick cream, approximately you will need 25-30 minutes. Add in the vanilla to cream. The cream must be stirred a few times during chilling, the top to not get dry.

8. Mix the room temperature butter and the icing sugar with a kitchen whisk, until you have a light, soft butter cream, pour the cold vanilla cream into and mix it well.

9. Place the vanilla cream onto the coconut cake, sprinkle with cacao if you wish. Place the cake in the fridge for overnight or for a few hours before serving.