Fannie May Trinidad Cake

Some of my fondest memories of growing up are of trips back to the Chicago area for the holidays to see family. A must-do on our list was heading to Fannie May Chocolates, often on Michigan Ave. Each child was given the chance to hand pick a half pound of chocolates. We stood in from of the cases of chocolates, eyes wide, with what seemed like such a monumental decision. My favorites have changed over the years but have included the likes of chocolate covered cherries, Mint Meltaways, and the Pink Lady. Arguably the signature chocolate at Fannie May is the Trinidad: a dark chocolate truffle center with a pastel yellow confection coating with toasted coconut. The toasted coconut adds a bit of texture without making it taste overly coconutty. 

The Trinidad has remained a favorite with my family over the years. For my parents anniversary in 2020, I decided to re-create the Trinidad in cake form. I settled on the following combination: dark chocolate cake, dark chocolate ganache filling, and white chocolate toasted coconut buttercream (yellow of course!). Special dark cocoa for the cake would give it the color and depth I wanted, but I was stuck on how to make this really stand out as a Trinidad and not just a chocolate and coconut cake. Then the answer came to me. I would have to incorporate real Fannie May chocolate into the ganache and frosting! For anyone that knows Fannie May, getting your hands on some isn't an easy task outside of the Chicago area. Luckily for me, the Fannie May factory is situated in North Canton, OH on a slight detour between my house and my parents. On my seven hour drive that August I made the necessary side trip. To my delight, both dark chocolate and white chocolate bunnies left over from Easter were on clearance. These would be perfect for melting down for use in the ganache and frosting. I headed for PA, bunnies in hand. And maybe a pound or two of Trinidads as well. 

The cake assembly was pretty straight forward. I layered the 3 chocolate cakes with the dark chocolate ganache. I added toasted coconut to the white chocolate butter cream and got the perfect shade of Trinidad yellow. For decoration, I added a yellow ganache drip to get more of the confection coated texture. I finished with a little chocolate ganache in the middle, sprinkle of coconut and topped it with a Trinidad. 

The cake was very rich but gave me the true Trinidad flavor. In all honesty, the ganache filling hardened more than I would have liked, a departure from the truffle texture I was trying to accomplish. But I'm happy to have an excuse to experiment with this cake again.

(Don't mind the unprofessional photos. I made this before I ever thought about writing about it.)