Inside Out “Mounds Bar” Kahlúa Cake
Cake
1 Devil’s Food cake mix
1 3.4-oz. pkg. instant chocolate pudding
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup Kahlúa liqueur (or coffee liqueur)
3/4 cup water
3 eggs
Frosting
8 oz. Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chopped into small bits
4 oz. whipping cream
Coconut Topping
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
Pinch salt
1 13.5-oz. can coconut milk
1/2 can of 8.5-oz. cream of coconut (CoCo Lopez or other brand)
4 cups shredded coconut
The cake:
Preheat oven to 350. Put all ingredients in a bowl. Mix on Low for 1 minute to combine. Scrape bowl. Mix on Medium High for a full 3 minutes to make lighter and fluffier.
Spray your angel tube pan with baker’s spray or grease and then flour the pan. Pour batter in pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes until done. You can use a toothpick to test for doneness. If no crumbs stick, it’s done. Or you can use your finger to test. If you push on it gently and it springs back, it’s finished. Let cool in pan and then turn out onto your serving plate. While the cake is cooling you can make your topping and your frosting.
Frosting:
Put your chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream in a saucepan on Medium High just until it starts to boil. Watch it. It won’t take long. When the bubbles form along the edges, you know you are close. As soon as it starts to bubble, pull it off the heat and pour the hot cream over the chocolate. You are making a traditional French ganache. Stir immediately with a whisk to incorporate the cream into the chocolate. Stir until the chocolate is completely melted and you have a beautiful, shiny chocolate sauce-like frosting. You’re going to let this cool down. As it does the frosting will start to thicken. How fast it hardens depends on the humidity. The lower the humidity, the faster it will start to firm up. When it’s spreading consistency but still pretty loose, you want to coat your cake. So don’t go off to the movies or anything or you might have to reheat the frosting, and then you run the risk that it might not heat well and could separate. Just stir it once in a while and you’ll see it start to firm up. Under normal circumstances it will take about 2 hours to get to the point where you want to use it as frosting. In the beginning it’s more of a “drizzle” or glaze. If you just can’t wait, you can use it like this; it just won’t be as easy to control.
Topping:
In a heavy saucepan, combine your sugar, cornstarch and salt. Add the coconut milk and the cream of coconut. Heat on Medium and stir until smooth. This is a warm job but you’re going to want to keep heating this on Medium and whisk constantly until it starts to boil. This might take about 5 minutes. Once it starts to bubble, hang with it 2 more minutes and keep on stirring while it bubbles and thickens. Keep stirring so it does not get stuck to the bottom of your pan. Take the pan off of the heat, pour the mixture into a larger bowl and add the shredded coconut. Stir to thoroughly combine. Let this mixture cool completely. You’ll see it looks just like the insides of a Mounds bar only slightly stickier.
To assemble your cake, take about a half cup of the topping and “stuff” it into the middle of the cake where the tube section is. Fill it to the rim and flatten off with a table knife.
Then frost your cake. The frosting will be smooth and runny so the technique here is to place a dollop of frosting on the top of the cake, coax it over to the side with your knife so it starts to run down the side and then use your spreading knife to smooth it along the sides. You can control the frosting so it doesn’t all just run down onto your platter. If you don’t mind the messy look, you can let the frosting run. It’s up to you. There’s enough frosting to cover the top and the sides of the cake with a nice layer. Now take the cake and put it in a refrigerator until the frosting firms up just like the outsides of a candy bar. This will take 30 minutes or so. You can leave in longer as long as you cover your coconut topping.
When you take the cake out, you’re going to mound the remaining half of your coconut topping on top of the chocolate cake. This mound is going to be about 1 inch thick or more in the middle. Truly decadent! The whole cake goes back into the refrigerator until about 30 to 60 minutes before you want to serve it, depending on how hot it is where you’re going to be leaving it. Don’t leave it in the sun or the chocolate will run off the cake. The cake can be served cold but these things always taste better if you take them out ahead of time to let them soften up and get their flavors in line before you serve them.
If you have leftovers, just cover the cake with plastic wrap and keep in the refrigerator.
B-man