Simple coconut cake to satisfy your late night sweet food craving.
The recipe takes about 1 hour, including prepping and baking time.
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📕 What is this cake, and what is it not?
This coconut cake is an uncomplicated afternoon coffee time cake.
I make it when I crave cake at night or when I'm too lazy to bake something complicated.
This cake recipe makes a lovely dinner dessert and my neighbors love it as a gift too.
It turns out moist and fluffy, you just need to blend all ingredients together in this recipe.
This cake is NOT a birthday cake, a wedding cake or anything fancy.
You can turn it into something more special. More info in the FAQs further below.
The french yogurt cake is a similar cake recipe.
🥥 Ingredients
You will need the following ingredients (exact measurements in printable recipe below):
- All-purpose flour
- desiccated coconut
- whipping cream or liquid cream with high-fat content
- sugar
- eggs
- vanilla extract
🔪 How to make it?
You are going to squeel with happiness if you are longing for cake RIGHT NOW, because this cake is ready in 1 hour! (yay that's the fastest ever!)
Here are three simple steps to help you give an idea about the process.
I'm spelling out all details in the recipe card further below (which includes US and metric measurements).
Step 1
Break eggs into mixing bowl and combine with sugar.
Stir in cream, coconut, vanilla and baking powder.
Step 2
Stir flour, a batch at a time, to the batter to avoid formation of lumps.
Combine to a smooth cake batter.
Step 3
Bake cake and sprinkle with powdered sugar when done.
Serve up.
🥣 Serving Ideas
We love this cake as is as an afternoon coffee time treat, dessert, or any time of the day sweet snack time treat.
Whipping cream, vanilla ice cream or vanilla custard sauce are great with this cake.
I also like Bavarian cream and canned fruits with my cake.
🍱 Storing
The cake can be left out for at least 5-6 days without it turning bad as long as it is kept in a cool and non-humid climate.
I recommend storing the cake in the fridge if you live in a humid, wet tropical climate.
To store the cake in the fridge, cut into slices and place it into Tupperware or similar containers.
💭 FAQs
You can make this cake 1 day in advance. I don't recommend making it 2-3 days in advance because the cake won't be that moist anymore.
Yes you can but it will turn out into a cake loaf. Use your favorite cream cheese filling and frosting from other recipes in this cake because I'm not an expert in cream cheese filling and frosting.
Global Food Recipes
with Spices and Herbs
Free E-Book available for a limited time. Grab yours now and get instantly inspired!
You missed out!
📖 Recipe
Simple Coconut Cake Recipe
Ingredients
For the Cake batter
- 4 Eggs
- 7 Ounces Sugar
- 1 Cup Heavy Cream
- 2.7 Ounces Coconut Shredded
- Vanilla Extract
- 1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
- 7 Ounces All-purpose Flour
Garnish
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, break whole eggs.
- Stir sugar into eggs and combine well.
- Add desiccated coconut, whipping cream, baking powder, and vanilla extract to the batter and combine.
- Pour some flour to the mixture and whisk in until combined. Add more flour in stages and combine each time until all the flour has been mixed into the cake batter.
- Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit/ 180° Celsius.
- Pour batter into your cake pan. No need to grease if it's a non-stick pan, if it's no,t grease with butter or oil.
- Bake cake at 350° Fahrenheit/ 180° Celsius for about 40 minutes OR until baked through. Test if the cake is done by poking with a toothpick into the cake. If it comes back clean, it's baked.
- Leave the cake to cool a bit. Place on a serving tray and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
- Serve up and enjoy!
Notes
- Use a 10 x 5 inch (25.4 x 12.7 cm) silicon loaf pan.
- Use whipping cream because it contains more fats. That required so that the cake remains moist as there is no butter or other oil in this recipe.
- Use baking powder and not baking soda. Baking powder is made of baking soda and cream of tartar and the latter helps in stabilizing the other ingredients (keeps a flavor and texture balance).
- You can use vanilla sugar too instead of vanilla extract.
- You may switch the sugar with brown sugar.
P says
This is one of the best cakes I've ever made and I'm an amateur baker. This tastes like egg custard with the consistency of sponge cake. I did put a coconut glaze over top
Helene Dsouza says
Thanks for sharing your experience with my coconut cake recipe. Glad to hear it turned out great and love the coconut glaze idea.
Wendy says
Good afternoon and thank for sharing the recipe. I followed the directions exactly and the cake turned out extremely dense. I would also use coconut milk ( full fat) instead of the cream if I were to make this again 😃
Helene Dsouza says
Hi Wendy, thanks for the feedback, I appreciated. I removed the cup measurements because I think that's the problem here. I usually don't add cup measurements to cakes anymore because those are so inexact. Measuring cake ingredients is the way to go. 🙂
Nedra Russell says
Hi - is the coconut sweetened or unsweetened?
Helene Dsouza says
Hi Nedra, it's unsweetened coconut.
Peggy says
I was so excited to make this cake, but it wasn't what I expected. It turned out dry and very very dense, It doesn't look that way in the picture. What went wrong? I followed the directions and watched the video... but when I poured it in the pan it was much thicker than it appeared in the video... at the time I thought maybe I should have used only 1 cup of flour... so I checked the recipe and it read 1 1/2 cups. But after I baked it, it was very very dense and dry so I checked the recipe and watched the video again... I had made it just as the recipe read... help... I love coconut,,, What went wrong?
Helene Dsouza says
Hi Peggy, I'm sorry that the cake didn't turn out the way as you expect it. This cake recipe is one of the last ones that I shared with US cups as a measurement option, my other cakes have been converted to ounces or grams only. I came to realize that cups is not the way to go when measuring something as exact as a cake recipe, it's exact science after all. So, I will be removing the cups measurements and changing them to ounces. For now, you can try to use the metric measurement option. That means grams and milliliter. It's important to weigh ingredients when making a cake because a little more flour can make it more dense. I wanted to give my US readers the option to make cakes with US cups, but I don't think it's a good solution. I will change the recipe tomorrow to ounces!
Lori Adkins says
You didn't say how much baking powder. This did not turn out very good.
Jan says
Best coconut cake I have ever made and I have been baking over 50 years
Helene Dsouza says
Oh lovely, that makes me happy 🙂
Eva Taylor says
Very nice video, Helene. We love the flavour and texture of coconut so this cake would be perfect for us. How do you like using the silicone pan? I don't love that the sides expand as it bakes. I had a couple at the beginning of the rage but every time I used them, they had a synthetic odour so I got rid of them. I miss their shapes now but don't miss the smell.
Helene Dsouza says
Hi Eva, I love the silicone pans, because as you mentioned, they expand, they are nonstick, and getting the cake out is easy. Besides storing them in the cupboard saves place. We buy our silicone molds and mats in France because they have a large choice of BPA free products. Those don't have that synthetic odor. At the end, it's a preference story too. I always recommend using what one is comfortable with. 🙂