Easy Coconut Cake Recipe
Easy Coconut Cake – a moist and flavorful coconut cake topped with a sweet and creamy coconut buttercream frosting. This easy to make cake is perfect for spring and summer, or any time you need a coconut fix!
Coconut cake is an easy favorite at my house. I recently made this for Easter, but it’s amazing for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, graduations, or any spring or summer get together.
It’s SUPER easy to make, which is a huge plus. It’s one of my favorite kinds of simple desserts because it takes a boxed cake mix and dresses it up a bit! When you need a delicious dessert that everyone will love, and you don’t want it to be too complicated, this is the one!
Ingredients For Easy Coconut Cake
- white cake mix
- eggs
- water
- vegetable oil
- coconut extract
- milk
- cream of coconut
- sweetened flaked coconut
- butter
- powdered sugar
How to Make Easy Coconut Cake – Step by Step
Step 1: Mix
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13×9 inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. In a large bowl, stir together the cake mix, eggs, water, coconut extract, and vegetable oil until moistened, then beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for two minutes. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.
Step 2: Bake
Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes until top of cake is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Step 3: Add the Cream of Coconut
Remove cake from the oven and place on a wire rack. While cake is still warm, poke holes over the entire surface of the cake with a toothpick or fork. Whisk 1 cup cream of coconut and 1/2 cup milk together in a small bowl and pour evenly over the warm cake. Allow cake to cool completely.
Step 4: Make the Frosting
Beat the softened butter over medium speed with an electric mixer until soft and creamy. Continue to beat over medium speed as you gradually add the powdered sugar. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed to fully incorporate all of the sugar. Once butter and sugar have come together, gradually beat in the remaining cream of coconut (about 1/3 cup). Add the coconut extract 1 teaspoon at a time and taste in between for desired flavor. 1 teaspoon is plenty for me.
Step 5: Frost and Serve
After cake is completely cool, top with coconut buttercream frosting and sprinkle with coconut. You can also toast the coconut before sprinkling on top; directions for that are below. Store any leftover cake in the refrigerator. Enjoy!
Tips and Notes
Where to find the Cream of Coconut
Cream of Coconut can usually be found with the mixers for alcoholic beverages.
How to Store
Store the frosted cake, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Can this Coconut Cake be made ahead of time?
Yes! This can be made 1-2 days ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator. I do recommend removing it from the refrigerator and allowing it to come closer to room temperature about 1-2 hours before serving, but that’s just personal preference. It tastes delicious cold as well!
More Delicious Easy Cake Recipes
- Pina Colada Poke Cake
- Banana Cake with Vanilla Frosting
- Lemon Poppy Seed Bundt Cake
- Easy Pineapple Upside Down Cake
Recipe: Easy Coconut Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 (15.9 oz) box of white cake mix
- 3 eggs
- 1 cups water
- 1/3 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract
- 1 cup cream of coconut
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut
Coconut Buttercream Frosting:
- 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1-2 teaspoons coconut extract
- 1/3 cup cream of coconut
Instructions
To make the cake:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13x9 inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a large bowl, stir together the cake mix, eggs, water, coconut extract, and vegetable oil until moistened, then beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for two minutes. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30-35 minutes until top of cake is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Remove cake from the oven and place on a wire rack. While cake is still warm, poke holes over the entire surface of the cake with a toothpick or fork. Whisk 1 cup cream of coconut and 1/2 cup milk together in a small bowl and pour evenly over the warm cake. Allow cake to cool completely.
- After cake is completely cool, top with coconut buttercream frosting and sprinkle with coconut (toasted or not). Store any leftover cake in the refrigerator. Enjoy!
To make the frosting:
- Beat the softened butter over medium speed with an electric mixer until soft and creamy. Continue to beat over medium speed as you gradually add the powdered sugar. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed to fully incorporate all of the sugar.
- Once butter and sugar have come together, gradually beat in the remaining cream of coconut (about 1/3 cup). Add the coconut extract 1 teaspoon at a time and taste in between for desired flavor. 1 teaspoon is plenty for me.
To make the toasted coconut:
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spread coconut flakes in a single layer on a cookie sheet and toast in the oven for 5-10 minutes, stirring once or twice while cooking. Toast until lightly browned all over, then remove from the oven.
Notes
- Where to find the Cream of Coconut: Cream of Coconut can usually be found with the mixers for alcoholic beverages.
- How to Store: store the frosted cake, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
- Making ahead of time: This can be made 1-2 days ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator. I do recommend removing it from the refrigerator and allowing it to come closer to room temperature about 1-2 hours before serving, but that's just personal preference. It tastes delicious cold as well!
Holy coconut cake!!! This was an amazing recipe and really easy! The cake was so moist and full of flavor, even though I thought it would fall apart being too moist, but that wasn’t the case. Thank you.
Okay, seriously I was a little skeptical of all the amazing reviews. I don’t always love the cakes where you pour stuff over them. Sometimes they’re too gushy? Honestly, this cake is perfect. I actually just finished eating a piece for breakfast. I’m sure the frosting recipe is also really good, but I did make a cream cheese frosting to go with it. Just personal preference.
Hi! How important is it to pour the milk and cream of coconut over the cake while it’s still warm?
I just finished baking my cake but as I was making the mixture realized I had bought coconut cream instead of cream of coconut!
I will have to put the cake in the fridge and then buy it tomorrow… 🙁
Tip when baking it. Read the entire recipe not just the ingredients list. Part of the cake ingredients are supposed to be used for the cake after it’s baked and you have poke holes in it. However if you mess up like I did just add 6.5oz of white cake mix and you’ll be fine and don’t poke hole is in it. 🙂
Delicious! Love that it does not use heavy cream or sour cream. I can digest the coconut cream so much better. Disappeared in a hurry.
I will say this is the best cake I have ever made. I followed the recipe to the letter (which I don’t always do). Next time I will probably double the butter cream frosting and I added about a tbsp of milk to thin it out just a bit. I also added toasted almonds to the toasted coconut on top. It was delicious. We were so excited to eat it that we ate it for Easter breakfast instead of waiting for dessert.
My husbands favourite dessert on your blog! I lost count how many times I made it by now! Easy, moist, beautiful frosting.
This cake was so moist and and I loved how easy it was using a cake mix!
Every year my husband asks for a coconut cake for his birthday. Out of all the recipes I’ve tried, this by far is the best one! So so easy and delicious!
This cake was totally delicious! Our daughter loves coconut so I made it for her birthday ( easy peasy) and we were all blown away!
I substituted butter for the oil, and used sour cream w/milk in the cake. It was great. It’s like a tres leches coconut cake. Yum!