Easy Coconut Cake
This Easy Coconut Cake is moist and light with wonderful coconut flavor- it starts with a box of white cake mix!
Keep this recipe in mind the next time you need a great birthday cake recipe, potluck cake, holiday cake, or other special occasion. You will love the soft, moist cake layers and creamy coconut cream cheese frosting!
Table of Contents
Ingredients
Here's a quick look at our ingredients for today's cake! Find the full, printable recipe at the bottom of this post.
- White Cake Mix (15.25oz)- We used Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist. Ignore the directions on the back of the box.
- All Purpose Flour
- Sugar
- Salt
- Sour Cream- Adds richness and enhances the texture. We use "full fat".
- Melted Butter- Adds richness and flavor. We use unsalted. If using salted butter, you can omit the salt in the recipe.
- Milk
- Large eggs
- Coconut Extract and Vanilla Extract
- Sweetened, flaked coconut
*We used coconut cream cheese frosting for today's filling and frosting. Find the ingredients below!
How to Make Easy Coconut Cake
You can find the full recipe at the bottom of this post. Here is a quick look at our steps!
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Grease and flour three 8x2 round cake pans. We also like to line ours with circles of parchment paper (optional).
- In the bowl of your mixer, combined all ingredients except for the flaked coconut (which we will add at the end).
- Mix the ingredients on low speed for about 15 seconds to incorporate, then mix on medium speed for two minutes. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
- Gently fold in the cup of flaked coconut.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake at 325 degrees for 22-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. (If you don't have a toothpick, you can insert a thin, sharp knife.)
- Cool the baked layers in their pans on a wire rack for ten minutes before turning out.
Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting
We love this delicious coconut cream cheese frosting recipe. It is so quick and easy, and is based on our classic cream cheese frosting recipe.
It combines softened cream cheese and butter, coconut extract, powdered sugar, a pinch of salt, and vanilla.
Decorating the Cake
Once the coconut cake layers have cooled completely, place the first cake layer on the cake pedestal or cake plate. Spread the top with a layer of cream cheese frosting. Repeat steps for the next layer. Then top with the third cake layer.
Frost the sides and top of the cake with frosting, then press flaked into the frosted cake to cover the top and around the sides.
More Coconut Cakes
We hope that you enjoy this recipe! Make sure to check out our other doctored cake mix recipes!
We've also made lots more coconut cake recipes for you over the years. Some of our favorites are carrot cake, coconut cream cake, Italian Cream Cake, and Pineapple Coconut Pound Cake.
Thanks so much for stopping by today! We hope that you enjoy the recipe. We'd love for you to scroll through our collection of favorite cake recipes and cake decorating tutorials!
Have you made this? We would LOVE for you to leave a ⭐️ rating as well as a comment and photo below! We really appreciate your feedback!
Easy Coconut Cake
Ingredients
- 1 box white cake mix, sifted (15.25 oz) (We used Duncan Hines White Cake Mix- Perfectly Moist)
- 1 cup all purpose flour (121g)
- 1 cup granulated sugar (200g)
- ½ teaspoon generous dash of salt
- 1 cup sour cream (242g) (We used "full fat")
- 1 stick unsalted butter, melted (113g) (This is ½ cup butter)
- 1¼ cup milk (300g) (we use 2 percent or whole milk)
- 3 whole large eggs
- 2½ teaspoons coconut extract (10g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup sweetened, flaked coconut (We use Bakers Angel Flake)
Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting
- 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
- 16 oz cream cheese 452g (We used two 8 oz packages of full fat cream cheese.)
- 1-1 ½ teaspoons 4g-6g coconut extract (adjust to your liking)
- 1 teaspoon 4g vanilla extract
- 6 to 6 ½ cups powdered sugar (747g)
- pinch salt
Decoration
- Additional sweetened coconut to press into the frosted cake .
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
- Grease and flour three 8x2 round cake pans. We also like to line ours with circles of parchment paper (optional).
- In the bowl of your mixer, combined all ingredients except for the flaked coconut (which we will add at the end).
- Mix the ingredients on low speed for about 15 seconds to incorporate, then mix on medium speed for two minutes. Scrape down the bottom and sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
- Gently fold in the cup of flaked coconut.
- Pour into prepared pans and bake at 325 degrees for 22-25 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean or with just a few crumbs attached. (If you don't have a toothpick, you can insert a thin, sharp knife.)
- Cool the baked layers in their pans on a wire rack for ten minutes before turning out.
Frosting and Decorating
- Once the cake layers have cooled completely, place the first cake layer on the cake pedestal. Spread with the top a layer of cream cheese. Repeat for the next cake layer. Then, top with the last cake layer.
- Frost the cake around the sides and on top with frosting. Press sweetened, flaked coconut into the top and sides of the frosted cake.
Looks great! :-)
Yummmmmmmm
In the oven. It's going to be great! How long before I must freeze the 3 layers. I probably will apply frosting early this coming week.
A very easy to follow recipe.
Thank you for this!
Hi Martin- Glad that you made it! You can freeze once the layers have cooled down to just slightly warm or room temperature. We like to wrap them individually in plastic wrap followed by foil. (You can use wrapped cake cardboards or extra support if you'd like).
I was thinking about this cake 4 days ago. I was so disappointed because I didn't get my grandmother's recipe for this cake then boom your recipe pops up on my newsfeed.
Hi Paula, that was perfect timing, I hope you enjoy it! ;0)