Any excuse to bake a cake

I have a raging sweet tooth, a newfound obsession with baking cakes, and a love of entertaining. So, when I realized our dear friend's birthday was this weekend, I jumped on the opportunity to bake a cake in his honor and present it at our monthly house party.

He had very few but very specific parameters. Chocolate and coconut? Yes. Lemon or fruit? No. Hmmmm.

One night another friend was visiting. We were talking shop, perusing cookbooks, and reminising about the Black Forest cake I had made for my husband's birthday last month.

As I spoke about the cake and its Kirsch-soaked layers, I rhetorically wondered what other alcohol would be good in a cake. My brilliant friend suggested Kahlua.

Chocolate + coconut + Kalhlua? It was starting to sound very, very good.

I started by baking a basic chocolate cake with coconut milk, then made ganache with Kahlua and dark chocolate:

I layered the cake with the Kahlua ganache and let it set:

Then, I coated the entire cake in a second layer of ganache:

Once that had set, I slathered the cake with chocolate Kahlua frosting, and topped it with a chopped dark chocolate espresso bar:

Unfortunately, I had a vat of leftover ganache, so: