Tropical Chocolate Cake

I know, I dissed the chocolate-fruit combination not three weeks ago. But for reasons I will not go into, we had to have a party (yes, a dinner party on Friday and a party party on Saturday--it was a little exhausting). For more reasons I will not go into, we decided it would be a Hawaiian party (my original notion was to roast a pig, but S, the professional, very rapidly disabused me of that notion--apparently it would have involved a significant investment in roasting equipment, not to mention the pig--so instead we had Spam centerpieces, since that is what they really eat in Hawaii).

Can you see where this is going? Of course you can, since you read the heading. Yes, Nigella’s Tropical Chocolate Cake (which is clearly not very popular as I can’t find a single relevant link): pineapple, coconut, oh so very Hawaiian.

And oh so very easy to make. Just dump everything into the food processor and process. Actually, first you process the canned pineapple and cream cheese (I know, doesn’t sound promising), then you add everything else, which means a bunch of regular chocolate-cake-type ingredients, plus two tablespoons of Malibu. Then you process it, put it into two eight-inch pans, and bake.

I had to make two cakes, given the number of party guests, and the first time the butter wasn’t soft enough so I had to overprocess it to get rid of the butter chunks. That one, the layers came out a bit flat. The second time I grated the butter and both layers were perfect. Then I forgot which cake was which after I frosted them, and I think they tasted pretty much the same.

The frosting was a bit more challenging: a coconut meringue that you beat forever over simmering water (Nigella said five minutes, but it took at least ten). It did look quite beautiful, though, once I mounded it on the cake and tossed dried coconut all over it. Once again, it also looked just like Nigella’s.

The party guests loved it, but the thing is, most of the party guests didn't have points of comparison. J and J were there, and they have had the Chocolate Gingerbread, Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake, Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake, and Chocolate Espresso Cake, but they weren’t in the mood for cake. S was there too and she has had most of them, but of course she loved the Chocolate HONEY Cake, so we need to weigh her judgments accordingly. Still, I must concur with her bottom line: it wasn’t as good as the Chocolate Guinness Cake.

The problem is, the Chocolate Guinness Cake has set a new standard. Though I expected it to be quite disgusting, what with all that pineapple and coconut, the Tropical Chocolate Cake was actually fine. The cake itself was light, moist, and tasty; the frosting was a bit heavy on the coconut, but not bad. Still, why go with fine when you could be in chocolate cake nirvana?