Bolo de Côco com Bába de Môça.
Brazilians love coconut! Well, most of them. There are so many recipes from sweet to savory that uses coconut; I can safely say, coconut is definitely a signature Brazilian ingredient. The recipes for coconut cakes are endless and it is my pleasure to share all the ones I love to make for my family and friends.
If you are following this blog, you will notice that there are other recipes, in which I used the same coconut caramel sauce. It is a very popular sauce to use on desserts and cakes in Brazil. In Portuguese, it is called, “Bába de Môça”. It is sooo good!
This recipe can easily be made vegan. Vegan alternatives will be posted side by side with original ingredients.
Ingredients to make the Cake
- 2 cups of flour ( I like to use 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of coconut flour)
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 cup of coconut flakes
- a pinch of salt
- 1 table spoon baking powder
- 4 table spoons of softened butter or 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 3 eggs ( use vegan egg substitute if making this cake vegan)
- 1 and 1/2 cup coconut milk ( from the dairy section)
- 1/2 tea spoon of vanilla extract
Ingredients for Coconut Caramel Sauce
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 can light coconut milk.
Directions
- Pre heat oven to 350F and lightly grease a cake pan ( I like to use a bundt pan).
- Mix butter or oil with sugar in a food processor, beat it until creamy and smooth. Add coconut flakes and pulse a few times. Add eggs and beat it again until well mixed. Add vanilla and coconut milk and beat it again.
- Then, add flour and salt, and mix well. Finally, add baking powder and pulse a couple times.
- Pour dough mixture in the cake pan and bake for 35 minutes or until the fork comes out clean. Let it rest.
Let’s make the sauce
- Heat sugar in a sauce pan, stirring constantly to caramelize the sugar. Once sugar is melted, turn heat to low and slowly add the coconut milk. The sugar will sizzle, so stay back for a few seconds to prevent getting burned. The sugar will harden a little, forming gooey caramel pieces, so it is important to keep stirring constantly for them to melt back to the sauce. Turn heat to high to help hard pieces of caramel melt faster. Once all melted, pour sauce in to a glass container. If there are still gooey pieces in sauce, heat it in microwave for 15 seconds.
- Turn cake over on to a serving platter and drizzle coconut caramel sauce over it. Save about half the amount of caramel sauce to drizzle over individual pieces.
- If the caramel hardens, just put it back in microwave for 10 seconds.
This cake is also delicious with a scoop of coconut or vanilla ice cream on top and a drizzle of coconut caramel sauce over it.
Note: English is not my first language, I apologize for any incorrections or mispellings. Please feel free to contact me in my inbox with any corrections. I just ask to be kind! Thank you