by JESSE SZEWCZYK
Make the cake: Cream 2 sticks butter and 2 cups sugar. Add 4 eggs, vanilla, and 4 oz. melted chocolate. Add 2 1/2 cups flour, kosher salt, and baking soda and mix until incorporated. Add 1 cup buttermilk. Divide between 2 baking pans and bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes.
Make the filling: Boil 1 cup brown sugar, 1 stick butter, 3 egg yolks, 1 cup evaporated milk, vanilla, and salt. Cook until sugar is dissolved.
Remove pan from heat and stir in 2 cups toasted pecans and 1 cup shredded coconut. Leave to cool.
Make the frosting: Cream 2 sticks butter, 1/2 cup cocoa powder, 1/4 cup heavy cream, vanilla, and salt together until smooth. Add 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar until combined.
Assemble the cake: Trim rounded tops of each cake layer. Put one layer on a stand and top with frosting.
Top that layer with half of the coconut filling and spread all the way to the edges.
Stack on the remaining cake layer, cut-side down. Cover the top and sides of the cake with the remaining frosting.
Pipe small, decorative mounds of the frosting around the top of the cake.
Top the cake with the remaining coconut filling and smooth into a thin, even layer all the way to the mounds of frosting.