mounds bar

flourless coconut cake
After my tres leche cake post, Lauren, a friend and former coworker, contacted me for the recipe. Lauren was temping in the Lucky Magazine art department while I was working there as a graphic designer. While at Lucky, she had the opportunity to move to France and teach English for a year, so she went for it. I remember being incredibly inspired and insanely jealous all at the same time. Anyway, when she returned, she brought with her a French boyfriend (!!!) and an amazing recipe for a flourless coconut cake, direct from said boyfriend's French mother. She offered to send me a this recipe in return for the tres leche recipe, and promised me that it tasted exactly like eating a Mounds bar. OH YEAH. Gotta have the recipe.

The ingredients included eggs, sweetened condensed milk, coconut milk, whole milk and unsweetened shredded coconut. The sweetened condensed milk is sweet enough that you don't need to add any extra granulated sugar. And the three milks combined with the hefty amount of coconut make this cake's center extremely moist, just like the filling of a humble Mounds bar.

The recipe is fairly classic when it comes to technique. It calls for separating the yolks from the whites, beating each separately, combining the beaten yolks with the remaining ingredients, then folding in the whites (for all you pastry nerds out there, this cake method is called a separated egg foam). This method allows you to build structure in the cake even though you aren't using any flour and to give the cake volume even though you aren't using baking soda or baking powder to help it rise.

After I unmolded the cake from my loaf pan, I drenched it in bittersweet ganache. Now it REALLY looked like a Mounds bar. Tasted just like one, too.

for the cake:
3 egg yolks
3 egg whites, beaten into stiff peaks (I did this by hand since it is only 3 whites)
200 mL coconut milk
200 mL sweetened condensed milk
100 mL milk
125g unsweetened shredded coconut (I found this at Whole Foods in the baking aisle)

for the ganache:
8 oz. heavy cream
1.5 oz. corn syrup
8 oz. bittersweet chocolate chopped into small pieces (I used Guittard 55%)

Heat oven to 350º. Grease a loaf pan with butter (preferably) or Pam spray.

Beat the 3 yolks. Add the condensed, coconut, and regular milks. Mix in shredded coconut. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites, and pour mixture into pan.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour; while baking, cover with aluminum foil so it won't burn.
The cake is done when a toothpick comes out clean.
Let cool completely before unmolding.

While cake cools, make ganache by heating heavy cream and corn syrup over low heat until bubbling around the edges. Pour mixture over chocolate and whisk to fully combine.

Flip out cake onto a wire rack over a sheet tray. Pour ganache over top and allow to set. Transfer cake to a platter and serve. Keep leftovers in the fridge.