Coconut Cake Ingredients

See Printable Recipe for a complete quick list.

Buttercream Cheese Frosting ingredients

These are the additional ingredients for making the frosting.

6 large eggs

Eggs provide the structure of the cake. It takes extra structure to hold up a cake this rich with all the coconut. We use local eggs because they’re fresh and cheap!

1-1/2 cups (1 can) coconut milk

Be sure your coconut milk hasn’t been on the shelf too long. The lite type isn’t as flavorful for this recipe.

1/2 cup sweetened shredded or flaked coconut

Fresh coconut would be better for inside the cake. We restore the dried coconut by soaking it in the coconut milk.

There’s more coconut for the toasted outside of the cake, below.

1 cup sugar

You could try switching out 1/4 or 1/2 cup of this for brown sugar if you want softer texture and a bit of caramel taste.

1/8 tsp salt

This will counter some of the sweetness without tasting salty. You could use sea salt, Kosher salt, or Himalayan rock salt if you prefer.

1 cup butter

Using melted butter instead of canola oil will taste better, but the cake will be a bit heavier. You can make it either way. If you use salted butter, you can leave out the additional salt. Otherwise, nobody will notice.

2 cups all-purpose flour (240 grams)

Cake flour would be too fine grained against the coconut, and this has extra gluten for structure.

4 tsp baking powder

This is a lot of baking powder but there are a lot of eggs!

Check the expiration date!

1/4 to 1/2 cup fruit jam or preserves (optional)

This is for an optional surprise between the cake layers. This is apricot, but we’ve used strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry with great results.

My friend gives me homemade jam for Christmas and this is one of the special things I use it for.

1/2 cup sweetened shredded or flaked coconut

This is for toasting. I always make a little extra so I can eat it.

Step by Step Instructions

Printable Recipe

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