Wow Wow Wow!! Excellent homemade taste and so easy to make. The sour cream filling keeps the cake super moist and an 8 oz. container of whipped topping is plenty. I've made this 4 times and never needed more. Instead of almond extract I add 1.5 teaspoon of coconut extract. This gives the cake a light coconut essence yet not overpowering. Definitely use White Cake mix. The yellow takes away from the coconut flavor. This cake is also fantastic with Cream Cheese frosting (from this website) with coconut flakes mixed in. Definitely add about 1/2 cup toasted coconut on top for color. I've never refridgerated this for more than 1 day and it tasted fine - definitely long enough for the flavors to meld. And this tastes best served at room temperature. Let the cake sit out for about 2-3 hrs for the cake and frosting to soften and moisten back up before serving or else it can taste stiff and dry coming out of the fridge. This cake is so good and taste so homemade it rivals the famous coconut cake at my local gourmet bakery. UPDATE 12/22/06 Made this cake for a woman's lunch (my 6th cake) and had offers from three different women to buy this cake from me for the holidays. Yah it's that good.
Fabulous!Thank you for this recipe it is a keeper. I have tried many coconut cream cake recipes trying to match a cake that I had in Charleston s.c. My husband paid 100 to ship one of these cakes for SC to Arizona for my birthday. I think this is about the same recipe. Next time I will use the cool whip & sour cream mixture as the filling between the layers and maybe poke holes in the cake while warm & pour over the sour cream & sugar combo then refridgerate it for a couple days. I also used a coconut cake mix from the store. Freeze the cakes before you slice them to frost much easier slicing. Fantastic can't wait to make it again!
Wow! This cake was just great. I thought the frosting amount was perfect...nice and fluffy. I also dyed a little of the coconut green and sprinkled it on top for "grass" then hid little jelly beans on top of the green coconut so they looked like little Easter eggs lying in the grass. I also sprinkled green coconut around the bottom and put jelly beans around the bottom. Just fantastic!
Oh My Gosh! This cake is to die for! I used yellow cake mix and omitted the almond extract. By day four we were fighting over the last couple of slices. I cut my cake layers with thread and it was easy as pie. This was my first time cutting layers way easier than I thought. We have paid to have this cake made for us never again. I will be making it myself for now on.
I made this to take to a family function and everyone really liked it. I split the layers using dental floss that worked really well. Also when filling between the layers keep in mind that you can use 1/3 of the sour cream mixture I was thinking 1/4 and ended up with too much at the end as the cool whip mixture takes care of the top. I used light sour cream & light cool whip with good results I agree with a previous reviewer that white cake mix is a must. Thanks for sharing this great recipe!
Since this is a birthday cake I haven't had a chance to taste test. I was not able to use all the frosting. 8 oz. of whipped topping would be very sufficent. I am making it 24 hours before cutting so hopefully the flavors will mesh. I did forget the almond flavoring in the cake mix so I added it to the filling. The cake with coconut on the top looks like a snowball... but way too much leftover frosting!
For an amazing fresh coconut taste, use fresh frozen coconut instead of the flaked coconut. (Tropic Isle is the only brand I have found.)
This has been a family favorite for many years. It's my Mom's favorite cake so I usually make at least one a year for her birthday. I agree that there is quite a bit of icing left but considering you usually have too little icing I'm not going to complain about that. You can always use the icing for other things like I used mine to top a chocolate cream pie once and it added a whole new dimension! I would highly recommend this cake however if you can stay away from it long enough to let it sit for 3 days before cutting you will not be sorry. The cake gets better as it ages in the fridge! Perfect for making ahead of time.
I first found this recipe in a magazine. The addition of too much sugar made it way too sweet and the sugar liquified the filling and frosting. I found that 1/4 to 1/2 Cup of sugar was adequate to sweeten it since the coconut and whipped topping are already sweet. It also set up better.
