This cake starts with a graham cracker layer which was easy. If you've ever made graham cracker crust for a cheesecake, you're good. The second step is making the cake batter. The only real trouble I had here was ingredients. My local grocery doesn't carry coconut emulsion, so I used an equal amount of coconut extract. The extract supposedly doesn't have as strong a flavor, but my whole pantry smelled like sunscreen, so I think it was okay. The recipe also called for coconut cream, and despite my best effort, the closest I could find cream of coconut. I guess the moral of the story is shop at a different place.😅 For the filling, I used roasted, salted pecans, and I highly recommend using salted nuts, it makes all the difference to have that contrast against the sweetness in the rest of the cake. I also used salted butter throughout the recipe. For the buttercream layer, somehow I missed the memo on butterscotch chips. I had half a bag left and half a bag of caramel chips. Turns out butterscotch and caramel chips are close enough to not matter. For the drip, I used dark chocolate chips, and I liked the contrast to the straight up sweetness in the rest of the cake.
A couple of other notes about this recipe. The cake took much longer than 30 minutes at 325. I recommend not trying to squeeze in the baking before leaving for a work appointment. For the filling, that also took much longer than recommended, close to double the time. It was still very loose, but did firm up once I added the coconut and chopped pecans. I could have let it go a minute or two longer, though.
This cake tastes amazingly like the seven layer bars of my youth. It's hard to get all the different parts in one bite, but when you do, it's pretty crazy to have the same flavors but a completely different texture. All-in-all, this was a big hit, but cut those slices thin!
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