Fresh Coconut Layer Cake

This cake is fabulous....However, I would change a few things next time. The frosting is overwhelmed with the taste of butter. I would cut the butter in half and add more cream cheese. I believe the filling would benefit from lemon flavoring and grated lemon peel. I did have to use twice the amount of cornstarch...luckily, I followed my hunches as the filling would have been too runny otherwise. The cake itself was exceptional...I only made two layers instead of three and they were ready in exactly 20 minutes. Overall, I would reduce the amount of sugar all around as it seemed far too sweet for my taste. Grating the coconut by hand was a chore....but oh, so worth it! This cake looked beautiful when it was presented and people were literally gushing....A true "suzy homemaker moment"!

The filling part is worth doing- for the rest of the recipe try making it simple. White box cake made according to directions on box except add coconut milk instead of water. Use filling from this recipe and for the frosting try French Vanilla Cool-Whip. I made this for my mom's birthday and it turned out great!!

WONDERFUL CAKE! I made this for my brother's birthday and had rave reviews. I have already been requested to make it again for a family gathering. The coconut is in everything- cake batter, frosting, filling, so there is no lack of flavor. This is not a white cake with coconut frosting, but a true coconut dessert!

This cake is definitely a keeper. It's a lot of work, but worth the effort with your prize at the end. I would strongly suggest however, that you minimize the amount of butter for the filling. All of the butter gave the filling a strong taste of just that; BUTTER, and it overpowered the taste of coconut. Instead, use a tablespoon of butter to give the filling a stronger taste of coconut. I ended up making it twice and I want to save everyone else from wasting products. Other than that, I made this cake, dished it out to the neighborhood and received rave reviews. I will be making a lot more of this cake, as I am a huge coconut fan.

I've made this cake twice now and everyone loves it! The second time I used only coco lopez coconut cream instead of coconut milk and it worked out great. I did decrease the sugar by 1/4 cup in the cake to make up for the extra sweetness in the cream.

I LOVED this cake!!! I had a potluck to go to, and now all of my friends and family are addicted to this cake~ Thanks for the great recipe!!!

THIS WAS THE BEST CAKE I HAVE EVER MADE!!! I HAVE NEVER USED PARCHMENT PAPER BEFORE, BUT IT WORKED WELL. THE FLAVOR IN THE CAKE WAS WONDERFUL. MY DAD'S FAVORITE CAKE IS COCONUT SO HE WAS MY TESTER....HE ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!

Don't understand how anyone could have liked this cake. The filling was tasty, as was the icing, but the cakes were thin little cardboard cookies. Neither my husband nor I finished even one piece let alone the cake.

Great recipe! All 5 family members here have radically different tastes, and all loved the same cake for once! Crazy. This will remain a special-occasion go-to recipe for me.

I made cupcakes with this recipe which may have impacted the cake part somewhat but I found the cake to be very dry. I LOVE the icing and the filling and ended up using them on cupcakes made with just a regular white cake mix. I did reduce the amount of sugar in the filling to just 1/2 cup and in the frosting to just 2 cups.

Takes awhile to make with all the steps but makes a noticaeable difference from box cakes. Turned out good even with my revisions. Half and half instead of whipping cream in the filling with an egg added to help in thickening. If you don't have cream of coconut you can skim a tablespoon off the top of the cocount milk before srirring it. I didn't find it necessary to use the syrup. I toasted the coconut for the top and used macadamia nuts as an additional garnish.

I added Malibu coconut rum to the filling and it gave it just the right touch! This cake was delicious, I even got a few marriage proposals out of it!! But I prefer the recipe from Paula Deen... I make this every year for my Cats' birthday (minus the rum, lol) and they love it, and they are picky eaters!! hehe...

Very moist, delicious cake. The frosting and filling is very sweet though, you do need to have a very sweet tooth for this. I made it for the first time to take to a family gathering and everyone enjoyed it, though some did find it a little over sweet due to the icing. Next time though, I will make the filling a little stiffer/thicker as the weight of all the layers of cake made some of the filling ooze out of the sides before I could add the frosting. Still a 5 star cake in my opinion!

Yummy! My 7 yr old son, who shares my love for cooking, wanted to buy a coconut. Long story short, I wanted a recipe that used fresh coconut and something he could do with just a little help from me. This cake was perfect. Not too difficult, a little time consuming, but worth it in the end. This cake was great! The only thing I changed was instead of 3 layers, we made 2. Turned out great!!

I first saved this recipe over a year ago and now that I only work part-time I finally had the chance to make it for a special occasion. Boy was I disappointed. I am a very experienced baker and was a professional at one time. The other reviews I read were right on when they say "Do not use an entire half cup of butter in the filling". It is too buttery tasting and over powers the coconut flavor to where you can't taste the coconut unless you're actually chewing on a flake of coconut in the filling. The filling squished out the sides of the cake so I had to wait even longer after it cooled to frost it. I get my eggs from a farmer near me so my eggs were VERY FRESH, but the cake itself was dry. I did use a generous amount of the syrup too, so the dryness surprised me. The cream cheese frosting is just a bad idea altogether. I tried it becuase I thought with the addition of the coconut milk it would be nice. Had I been on top of things yesterday, I wouldn't have frosted the whole thing with the cream cheese frosting. Oh well, live and learn, the cream cheese is also way too much and I definitely would cut the amount of cream cheese in half, at least, if ever making it again and I would use cream of coconut in its place. All in all, I feel this was a huge waste of time and money for ingredients. If not for the flaked coconut in the filling and on top of the cake, a person would never know it was supposed to taste like coconut:(

My husband loves coconut cake, so I made this cake for our first anniversary. This was a bit challenging for me personally, as I do not like coconut!!! Even so, he really loved this cake!!! The cake itself was a little more dense than I had originally hoped and not quite as moist as I would have liked, but the flavor of it seemed to be great (according to the husband)! The filling is absolutely out of this world!! Before I flavored it with the coconut, I could have eaten the entire batch straight out of the pot!! I made no changes to it! For the icing, it calls for a crazy amount of sugar, so I actually used 16 ounces of cream cheese, 3/4 cup of butter, and approximately 2 cups of sugar (sweeten to taste). This is similar to the cream cheese icing that I use for almost all of my cakes! This change does lend a bold cream cheese flavor, and is nowhere near as sweet. You'll notice it also doubles the amount of icing so you will have some left over! I got rave reviews over this cake, even though I was unable to personally decide whether it was good or not, since I do not like coconut. I will make this again! Also, I do recommend microwaving each slice for 10-20 seconds before eating it. Storing it in the fridge solidifies the filling and cake a bit, so zapping it makes it perfect!!!

I tried this cake with white box cake mix instead. The cake turned out better than anything else. The icing is OK - a bit too heavy for my taste. I did not care for the filling! I love butter - but 1/2 cup is way too much! This cake is far more work and than it is worth.

This is a great cake, though it does take quite some time. I had a lot of extra icing left over. The sugar syrup could be halved or quartered as well as the icing. All in all though, it was yummy!

I really liked this cake! I did make changes based on the reviews: only used 1 cup of sugar in the cake; only 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tbsp of butter in the filling, and added an additional tablespoon of coconut cream; and used 8 oz of cream cheese and 4 tbsps of butter in the frosting. I also made this in two 9 inch round pans (they took about 25 minutes to bake at 350), and I think that makes a decent sized layer--if you made 3 layers, they might be kind of thin. There is also a whole lot of filling--you don't want to put it all on if you only make two layers, or it will simply spill out the sides of the cake. I also did not add the simple syrup to the cake. It was moist and sweet enough that the syrup simply isn't necessary. I also toasted some coconut before adding it on to the outside. Overall, I think it's a great cake. With the changes, it's not overly sweet, and it has a good coconut flavor. My husband liked it too, but thinks that the cream cheese frosting does overwhelm the coconut a bit. I'm thinking about trying it with a coconut whipped cream frosting to see if that allows the coconut flavor to come through a bit more.

I made this cake twice and both times the cake itself was dry. The frosting and filling were both delicious. I think I will try another reviewers suggestion and try the boxed white cake and substitute coconut milk for water and make two layers rather than three. The filling didn't set in the time it took to make the cake. Refrigerating the filling overnight made a great difference.

Was disappointed that the filling never set up - not even after 2 days in the refrigerator. Was only able to us a little between the layers and ended up throwing most of it out. Otherwise the cake itself was delicious and the favorite of several of my friends. If anyone has a cure for the filling not setting up, please let me know.

This was amazing!! I made it for the first time for an aunt of mine. It was her birthday and she loves coconut, so I looked for a recipe specifically to meet her taste. I found plenty of recipes that had box cakes or dry coconut so when I came across this recipe I was excited. I did add crushed pineapple to the filling(just because I thought it would add a little bit more of flavor)So when I presented this cake to her she nearly cried. Apparently it reminded her of a cake that her father used to bring home from work back in Mexico. 5 stars from me!! ^-^

My friends LOVED this cake! It was awesome. The filling was delicious!

the "real" coconut flavor really shines through here. You can definetly tell it's not a store bought cake or a generic cake recipe modified to taste coconutey. It does take a little time and effort to make, which is why I didn't rate it higher. But the flavor is really good. I didn't have any problems with the recipe as is technical or flavor wise(I didn't add or substitute anything). It's a good cake, but not "to die for" in my opinion.

The cake was surprisingly dry and unpleasantly dense considering the fact that the syrup was meant to moisten it. Although I followed the instructions diligently, the cake tasted stale.

This recipe was great! I cut the sugar in half in the frosting and I put coconut cream in the filling, cake and frosting to enhance the flavor. I definitely recommend making the cake yourself. Don't use a box mix! It's not that much more work and the flavor makes it so worth it!