6-Layer Coconut Cream Cake

One of my dear colleagues celebrated her birthday yesterday. I got her invitation a month ago and I was quick to ask her whether I can bake a birthday cake for her. 
 
Of course, she said yes. Especially, as she has never had a marzipan cake before. Her favorite flavor is coconut, so the cake turned out to be a 6-layer coconut cream cake. 
 
Coconut cream was a bit of a challenge for me as I have never made anything with coconut before. Yeah, except coconut balls, but that is mainly chocolate balls sprinkled with coconut rasps. 
 
So I had one month to come up with the perfect recipe. I searched the internet and my cookbooks to find one. 

The original idea was to bake a cocoa shortbread cake with white coconut cream filing. However, when I saw this 6-layer cake, I changed the plans.

COCOA 6-LAYER CAKE (adapted from the recipe of Csiperke)

INGREDIENTS

500g all-purpose flour (less two tablespoon)
2 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 packet (12g) of baking powder
80g butter, room temperature
80g powder sugar
2 dl milk

Mix all ingredients together. First, all dry ones, then the butter, and finally the milk. Cut the dough into 6 identical pieces (measure them if you want to be sure). 

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (390 Fahrenheit) and bake them until 4 minutes. 4 minutes is enough to roll out one piece. So it will take less than 30 minutes to bake all layers.

COCONUT CREAM (adapted from the recipe book of Dr. Oetker)

INGREDIENTS

200g coconut milk
500g mascarpone
100g powder sugar
2 packets of gelatin (for 1l liquid)

Heat coconut milk in medium temperature until boiling and set it aside to cool. Mix mascarpone and sugar in hand-held mixer. Add the coconut milk when room temperature. As a last step add the gelatin as it is stated on its packet. 

FINISH THE CAKE
 
400g marzipan to cover
200g marzipan for the border and the bow
6 tablespoon coconut rasps

To finish the cake you should do the following: Take one layer of cake, then frost it with coconut cream and sprinkle it with 1 tablespoon coconut rasps. Then one layer of cake again and cream and so on. Leave some cream for the sides as well. 

Here you can find a video on how to cover a cake with marzipan/fondant and here is a video how to make marzipan/fondant bow. 

TIP: as marzipan is originally yellow, if you want to color it with blue, it will turn out as green like on the picture. If you want real blue, work with fondant, which is originally white.