Coconut Crunch Cake

I was thinking of some dessert to make after cooking Chicken Parmesan and Pasta, I seemed to of taken on cooking and baking that night and I was like an octopus with 8 arms.  Looking back why would I of baked a dessert while making dinner.  Keeping an eye on the stove and the oven, mixing, draining and wrangling the kids, what the heck was I thinking.  Fortunately, I didn't burn anything!  =)

I recently started following a fellow blogger and she had on her home page as a banner the most delicious looking coffee cake with some streusel in the middle and on top.  I thought that would be great.  I thought I had all the ingredients, well starting everything together I noticed I didn't have everything that was for the streusel.  It called for Graham Crackers.  I thought I had some but I was wrong.  So I've made my own coffee cake in the past, a coconut version.  I thought okay, why don't I just change out the streusels, it's worked out!  So using a little bit of both recipes, I concocted one that turned out pretty fabulous I must say.  It's great warm or at room temp.  I would warm it up and serve it with vanilla bean ice cream.  Or as Scott did, warmed it up, added ice cream, whip cream and hot fudge!  LOL!  It was pretty massive, I still can't figure how he can be so skinny with how much of a sweet tooth he has!

I want to thank Michelle from Michelle's Tasty Creations for giving me influence on this dessert recipe.  I would say this is like a coffee cake, cake or something else very yummy and buttery, crunchy, moist, nutty and oh so yummy.  I love how the ice cream slightly melted and taking a bite of both the cake and the ice cream was mmmmmmmm, I think I had an out of body experience....lol!

My intention was to make Michelle's Coffee Cake however like I said before I didn't have those Graham Cracker Crumbs.  So I took what she had for the cake, added something to it and then created my streusel.  I called it Coconut Crunch Cake.

Coconut Crunch Cake

Cake:
1 box yellow cake mix (I use Duncan Hines)
1 1/3 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 cup water
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 small box (4 serving size) Jell-O Instant Vanilla Pudding

Coconut Mixture:
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut
1 cup of brown sugar
3/4 cups (small chopped pecans)
9 Tablespoons of softened butter
4 Tablespoons of milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350'F.

Mix all ingredients of Coconut Mixture in a bowl and set aside.

 

In a separate bowl mix all cake ingredients with a mixer for about 2-3 minutes.

        

Pour half of batter into a generously greased 9x13 inch baking pan.  With your fingers place about half of coconut mixture around batter.

Pour leftover cake batter in pan evenly covering coconut mixture, spreading with a spatula if needed.

Bake cake for about 40 minutes until knife or toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Let the cake cool, then spread the rest of the coconut mixture on top of cake spreading evenly.

Turn your oven on to the broiler and place cake underneath enough for broiler to heat topping and slightly brown.  This make take a minute or two but check on it to not brown, you will see the topping kind of sizzle.  Remove cake from broiler and let it cool.  It will look much like the picture above but a little more golden.

I thought it was easier to cut the cake with a thin spatula and picked up the piece with the spatula by digging the size of piece but digging only once.  A knife didn't work well because it drags the topping.  You will notice how the coconut mixture kind of fell to the bottom almost like a soft crust.

Serve warm or at room temperature with Vanilla Ice Cream or your favorite ice cream and/or whip cream.  I think this might be even more decadent with caramel ice cream topping!

I hope you enjoy!

Sweet Dreams, 

Annamaria