I love this delicious homemade Coconut Cake recipe year round, but I especially love it at Christmastime!
Old Fashioned Favorite Cakes
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.
Coconut Cake Recipe from Scratch
This Coconut Cake Recipe from scratch is a classic!
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)
- 2 Tablespoons (16g) flour or cornstarch plus 1 Tablespoon water
- 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.
Instructions
FOR THE COCONUT FILLING...
In a small bowl add the flour or cornstarch with 1 Tablespoon water, stir to smooth. Add this to a saucepan with the sugar, butter and milk, bring to a boil. Stir constantly and watch closely as 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 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.
Love Coconut? We have more cake recipes to share!
Coconut Lemon Cake: 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
Pina Colada Cake: This recipe is a favorite too, which features coconut cake layers, pineapple filling, and a hint of rum! It’s a wonderful party cake, especially for spring and summer!
Pineapple Coconut Cake: I’ve decided to coconut tastes amazing with most fruit flavors! This fantastic cake features moist pineapple cake layers with a coconut cream cheese and pineapple filling and is covered in more coconut. Yum!
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!
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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
http://www.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!
Hi Sree, Thanks for your post!!
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.
The recipe calls for “sweetened flaked coconut”. But looking at all the pictures, it appears to be sweetened SHREDDED coconut instead. Can you clarify?
Hi Jason, The two brands that I use, my grocery store brand package says coconut flakes on the package as well as Baker’s brand. My coconut flakes are very thin short pieces of coconut. I think flakes and shredded are similar. Coconut chips are quite wide. Hope this helps
I don’t see flour in the ingredients for the filling, yet there is a question about, and answer confirming using flour to thicken the filling. Can you please explain if it has flour or not.
Hi Mona, That is strange, it is 2 Tablespoons flour. It isn’t in the ingredient list or instructions, yet a question was posted asking if 2 Tablespoons is enough….can’t explain that. I will make the correction. Thank you
Hi Bebe and Melissa,
I have a few questions,
1) for the filling will it work if I use coconut milk rather than regular milk to enhance the coconut flavour?
2)will this cake stack well for a wedding cake?
3) any idea what the shelf life is of the cake ?
Hi Samantha, I have never tried using coconut milk as a replacement for milk in this recipe. Coconut milk can be thicker and higher in fat than regular milk so I am not sure how that will affect the recipe. It should stack well for a wedding cake. The filling as well as the frosting is perishable so the cake will need to be refrigerated. Remove from the refrigerator about 2 hours before serving allowing time for the cake to warm a bit. If kept refrigerated, it should be fine from 3 to 5 days, best if eaten by day 3, in my opinion. The cake layers can be made in advance wrapped individually airtight with plastic wrap, then aluminum foil. You can freeze the cake layers a month in advance…….assembling the cake close to the event