Joanne Fluke’s Coconut Layer Cake Recipe

Joanne Fluke is the author of the beloved Hannah Swensen Mystery series, a long-running culinary cozy mystery series starring Hannah Swensen, an amateur sleuth, baker, and owner of The Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minnesota. Joanne, who has earned the moniker Queen of Culinary Crime, includes several delicious recipes in each Hannah Swensen Mystery. Many of these recipes have been compiled into cookbooks. See a Review of Joanne Fluke’s Lake Eden Cookbook From Cozy Crime Reads.

You can find more info about Joanne Fluke’s books and recipes here:

• List of Hannah Swensen Mystery books in order

• Alphabetical list of recipes from the Hannah Swensen Mysteries

• Joanne Fluke Recipe List PDF Download

• Joanne Fluke baking videos

Recipe Note From Cozy Crime Reads

The following recipes are excerpted from Joanne Fluke’s Lake Eden Cookbook: Hannah Swensen's Recipes from The Cookie Jar. This brand new cookbook was released on October 22, 2024. It includes all the recipes from the original 2012 cookbook as well as the title recipes from the entire Hannah Swensen series so far.

The recipes show below also appeared in Coconut Layer Cake Murder (book 25 of the Hannah Swensen Mysteries) by Joanne Fluke. In this book, Lonnie Murphy, a detective and crime scene investigator for Lake Eden, Winnetka County, Minnesota, picks up a coconut layer cake from The Cookie Jar for his friend Cassie Polinski. It is Cassie's birthday, and Coconut Layer Cake is her favorite. Hannah's business partner, Lisa, decorated the cake with candles and Cassie's name to make it extra special. A birthday card signed by everyone at The Cookie Jar was tucked inside the box.

As with many of Hannah Swensen's mysteries, the treats in Coconut Layer Cake Murder play a role in the story and help Hannah solve the mystery. The following Coconut Layer Cake recipe, which is frosted with a fantastic, sweet and tart lemon frosting, makes the perfect reading snack to enjoy with the book.

HANNAH’S COCONUT LAYER CAKE

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, rack in the middle position.

• 8-ounce can crushed pineapple (I used Dole)

• 2 cups shredded coconut (pack it down when you measure it)

• 1/8 cup (2 Tablespoons) all-purpose flour

• 12-ounce (by weight) bag of white chocolate chips or vanilla baking chips (11-ounce package will do, too—I used Nestlé)

• 4 large eggs

• 1/2 cup vegetable oil

• 1/4 cup cold whole milk

• 1/4 cup rum (I used Malibu Caribbean Rum with Coconut Liqueur)

• 2 teaspoons coconut extract

• 8-ounce (by weight) tub of sour cream (I used Knudsen)

• 1 box of white cake mix with or without pudding in the mix, the kind that makes a 9-inch by 13-inch cake or a 2-layer cake (I used Duncan Hines)

• 5.1-ounce package of instant coconut pudding mix (I used Jell-O, the kind that makes 6 half-cup servings)

Prepare your cake pans. You’ll need 2 round cake pans, 8 or 9 inches in diameter.

Spray the inside of your cake pans with Pam Baking Spray. Alternatively, you can spray them with Pam Cooking Spray and flour the inside of the pan, sides and all, knocking out the excess flour.

Hannah’s 1st Note: To flour a baking pan, put some flour in the bottom, hold it over your kitchen wastebasket, and tap the pan to move the flour all over the inside of the pan. Continue this until all the inside surfaces of the pan, including the sides, have been covered with a light coating of flour.

Place a strainer over a bowl on the counter. Open the can of crushed pineapple and dump (yes, that is a cooking term) it into the strainer. Leave it there to drain while you continue to make the batter for your cake. (You can save the juice to add to orange juice in the morning.)

Put the coconut in the bowl of a food processor. Sprinkle on the 2 Tablespoons of flour. Process to chop the coconut into much smaller pieces by using the steel blade in an on-and-off motion.

Place the finely-chopped coconut in a bowl on the counter. Put the white chocolate or vanilla baking chips in the bottom of the food processor bowl. In an on-and-off motion with the steel blade, chop the chips into small pieces. Place the chopped chips in another bowl on the counter.

Hannah’s 2nd Note: You can mix up this cake by hand, but it takes some muscle and you must make sure everything is well combined. It’s a lot easier to do if you use an electric mixer.

Crack the eggs into the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix them up on LOW speed until they’re a uniform color. The consistent color will tell you that the eggs are thoroughly mixed.

Pour the half-cup of vegetable oil over the eggs. Mix the two ingredients together on LOW speed.

Add the quarter-cup of cold milk to the bowl. Mix it in on LOW speed.

Add the quarter-cup of rum to the bowl. Mix that in on LOW speed.

Hannah’s 3rd Note: If you do not want to use liquor in this cake, you can substitute another quarter-cup of cold milk for the rum.

Add the 2 teaspoons of coconut extract to the bowl. Mix that in on LOW speed.

Scoop out the 8-ounce container of sour cream and add it to your bowl. Mix that in on LOW speed.

When everything is well combined, open the box of dry cake mix and sprinkle HALF of it on top of the liquid ingredients in the bowl. (This doesn’t have to be precisely half. Just use your best judgment.) If you add the cake mix all at once and then turn on your mixer, you risk having the dry cake mix fly all over your kitchen! (And please don’t ask me how I know this.)

Mix in the first half of your cake mix on LOW speed.

Add the second half of your cake mix and mix that in. Continue to mix until everything is well combined.

Add the package of dry instant coconut pudding mix. Beat it in, again on LOW speed.

Finally, sprinkle in the chopped coconut and chopped white chocolate or vanilla chips. Mix them in thoroughly on LOW speed.

Remember the crushed pineapple that you set in the strainer on your counter? Now it’s time to deal with that.

With the back of a mixing spoon, press down on the crushed pineapple in the strainer. Keep moving the spoon and pressing down until you’ve gotten as much liquid as possible from the pineapple.

Tear off several pieces of paper toweling and place it over the top of the pineapple in the strainer. Press down on that with your impeccably clean hand. Again, express as much liquid as you can. You want this pineapple as dry as you can get it.

Place the crushed pineapple in the bowl of the mixer and mix it in on LOW speed. Mix until it’s thoroughly combined.

Shut off the mixer, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and give your batter a final stir by hand.

Use a rubber spatula to transfer the cake batter to the prepared cake pans. Do this as evenly as possible.

Smooth the tops of both pans with a rubber spatula and place them on the same shelf in the oven, leaving as much room between the pans as possible.

For two 8-inch rounds, bake your Coconut Layer Cake at 350°F. for 45 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted 1 inch from the center comes out clean.

For two 9-inch rounds, bake your Coconut Layer Cake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted 1 inch from the center comes out clean.

Before you take your cake out of the oven, test it for doneness by inserting a cake tester, thin wooden skewer, or long wooden toothpick one inch from the center of the cake pan. If the tester comes out clean, your cake is done. If there is still unbaked batter clinging to the tester, shut the oven door and bake your cakes in 5-minute increments, testing after each increment, until they test done.

Once your cakes have finished baking, take them out of the oven and set them on cold stovetop burners or wire racks. Let them cool in the pans for 15 minutes.

After the 15-minute cooling time is up, run a table knife from your silverware drawer around the sides of the pans to loosen the cakes.

Pick up each cake pan with oven mitts or potholders and tip the pan upside down on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Gently tap the bottom of the pan to free the cake. Carefully lift off the cake pan so that the cake rests on the parchment paper.

Cover your cake layers loosely with foil and refrigerate for at least one hour. Overnight is even better. You want the cake layers to firm up.

Frost your Coconut Layer Cake with Coconut Lemon Frosting.

Yield: At least 8 pieces of incredibly good and very rich cake. This cake is wonderful with vanilla ice cream on top. Serve with tall glasses of ice-cold milk or cups of strong coffee.

COCONUT LEMON FROSTING

• 2 cups white chocolate or vanilla baking chips (11-ounce package)

• 1/4 teaspoon salt (it brings out the flavor of the chocolate)

• 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

• 1 teaspoon coconut extract

• 1 teaspoon lemon zest

• 1 Tablespoon (1/8 stick) salted butter

• 1 cup sweetened coconut flakes (to pat on top of the frosting you use)

Hannah’s Note: If you use a double boiler for this frosting, it’s foolproof. You can also make it in a heavy saucepan over low to medium heat on the stovetop, but you’ll have to stir it constantly with a wooden spoon or a heat-resistant spatula to keep it from scorching.

Fill the bottom part of the double boiler with water. Make sure the water doesn’t touch the underside of the top.

Put the white chocolate or vanilla chips and the salt in the top of the double boiler, set it over the bottom, and place the double boiler on the stovetop at MEDIUM heat. Stir occasionally until the white chocolate or vanilla chips are melted.

Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk. Cook approximately 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the frosting is shiny and of spreading consistency.

Shut off the heat, remove the top part of the double boiler, and set it on a cold stovetop burner. Quickly stir in the coconut extract and the lemon zest. (It may sputter a bit, so be careful.)

Add the salted butter and stir it in until it melts. Keep stirring your frosting until it cools enough to reach proper spreading consistency.