I love this delicious homemade Coconut Cake recipe year round, but I especially love it at Christmastime!
I have so many great memories of amazing desserts and cakes at our family Christmas get-togethers. There was always a good chance of finding a couple of homemade southern favorites like Red Velvet, Italian Cream Cake, Pound Cake, and of course, Coconut Cake!
There’s just nothing better than flavorful coconut filling sandwiched between moist yellow cake layers and a generous coat of coconut cream cheese frosting. The finished cake, dressed in flaked coconut looks as heavenly as it tastes!
We make our scratch Coconut Cake using this delicious scratch Yellow Cake Recipe, but you can substitute with the yellow or white cake of your choice. The cake in our photo is decorated with fondant holly leaves and red Sixlets candies.
*Special thanks to my Aunt Kay for sharing her mother’s recipe with us that we have all fallen in love with over the years!
Coconut Cake
Ingredients
- Make your preferred yellow or white cake (plus one teaspoon of coconut extract). We like our Yellow Cake {Scratch Recipe}. We baked two layers of cake and torted them, so that we could have 4 layers (and more filling!).
Filling for Coconut Cake (Can be made in advance)
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 2 Tablespoons (28g) butter
- 3/4 cup (180) milk
- 1 teaspoon (4g) vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon (4g) coconut extract
- 1 1/2 cups (105g) sweetened flaked coconut
For the Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1 cup (2 sticks) (226g) unsalted butter, softened
- 8 oz. (226g) cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
- 2 teaspoons (8g) vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon (4g) coconut extract
- 4 to 4 1/2 cups (420 - 470g) powdered sugar, additional powdered sugar if needed
- 2 cups Flaked Sweetened Coconut for pressing into the frosted cake.
Directions
For the Filling...
- Add the sugar and milk to a saucepan and bring to a boil. Watch closely because it can quickly come to a boil and boil over the pot. When it comes to a boil, remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla and coconut extracts, butter and the flaked coconut. Return the pan to the heat and cook on medium high until the mixture reduces and begins to thicken. Stir frequently. Allow to cool to room temperature before spreading between the cake layers.
For the Frosting...
- 2 cups Flaked Sweetened Coconut for pressing into the frosted cake.
- In the bowl of your mixer beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the vanilla and coconut extract. With the mixer on low speed gradually add the powdered sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Beat until smooth.
- Makes 4 cups and will cover a 2 layer 8 inch round cake. Frosting should be refrigerated.
To assemble the cake:
- We split our 2 layers in half because we wanted 4 thin layers for this cake. Place 1 cake layer on a cake plate or cake board. Spread with filling, place second cake layer on top of this and fill, and so on. Once all the cake layers are filled, frost the cake with Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting. Pat approximately 2 cups flaked sweetened coconut over the top and sides of the cake. Press the coconut gently into the frosting so that it will stick. Cover the cake and refrigerate until ready to serve. For best flavor, remove the cake from the refrigerator 2 hours before serving.
If you love coconut AND lemon, you’re going to want to save our Coconut Lemon Cake recipe also! This recipe consists of moist coconut cake layers with a filling of lemon curd and lemon whipped cream!
The cake is frosted in coconut cream cheese frosting with a fluffy coat of flaked coconut. You can find it here: Coconut Lemon Cake Recipe from Scratch
Looking for even more coconut goodness? We have more delicious recipes to share! Check out our Piña Colada Cake Recipe. This amazing cake consists of Coconut Cake Layers with crushed pineapple and a hint of rum!
This is an excellent dessert choice for parties- so festive! We especially love it for Cinco de Mayo and summer celebrations!
Thanks for stopping by! We hope that you enjoy this delicious traditional Coconut Cake recipe. Coconut cake is always a crowd pleaser and perfect for celebrations year-round! I wish I had a slice right now!
Don’t miss our full collection of tried and true cake and frosting recipes in our Recipes Section! We’ve rounded up all of our favorites, and we’re always adding new recipes! You can find it here: My Cake School Recipes Section
If you are interested in seeing our Free Cake Tutorials, check out our Free Tutorials Section! We’d love to have you. (Look for the drop list so that you can search by category).
Finally, if you would like to learn even more about cake decorating, you should consider becoming a member of our site! Our members have online access to every video tutorial that we’ve made.
That’s hundreds of full length cake decorating video tutorials for a very small membership fee. We’d love to have you! You can find all of the details here: My Cake School Membership Information
Hi
I tried this Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting at my home, its really awesome i never tasted such good cake till know. Thank you for sharing such good recipe.
Regards
Priyanka
link to coolcake.in
Priyanka, we are so happy you like it, thank you for leaving a comment!
I’m so glad that I found your blog. I am looking for this kind of recipe for my mom because she loves coconut. I am going to bake this on her birthday tomorrow. Thank you for posting this awesome article!
That’s great, Lexie! Hope that you all love it! ;0)
Pinned for (not so distant) future reference. I LOVE anything that involves coconut, and this looks/sounds beautiful! I’m thinking I might try alternating coconut and lemon filling layers. Yummmmm! :)
Hi Chris, lemon filling does sound delicious!
Amazing! Coconut cake is something unique that i never tasted before.. But definitely I will add this yummy coconut cake to my site Bestbake.in
Thanks for sharing…
Hi Sree, Thanks for your post!!
@BeBe Can i have your personal website or any other blog where I can find different recipes of cakes. So that I can add them to my newly designed site Cakes in hyderabad
Thank you for your quick response..
only 2 TBSP of Flour ?????
hi beautiful licious cake.. sorry 2 ask.. only 2 Tbsp of flour???
Hi Rosa, Yes, 2 Tablespoons flour for this coconut filling. The flour thickens the mixture. This is a good filling for your favorite white or yellow cake recipe when making a coconut cake.
Lovely
Will be making this cocnut cake for my Grayson this weekend for his birthday. Will let you know how it went
This cake has brought back some old childhood memories. I lived in south of India in my younger days and we had a couple of coconut trees around our house.My mum use to make so many sweet treats with coconut. I think she will love this coconut cake. Will be surely trying this out soon. Thanks for the recipe and bringing back memories of the good old days!
Can you use coconut milk?
Hi Rena, Yes, it will be fine to use coconut milk.
Hi BeBe, was wondering if this cake will hold up under fondant. Thanks
Hi Fortune, Yes, the Yellow Cake from scratch recipe will hold up to fondant.