Italian Coconut Cake… Thanksgiving Style

at Home, Celebrate, Food

Introducing our latest favorite cake…Italian Coconut Cake! The thing we love about this cake is that is not the standard cake that is out there. The cake is moist and nicely decadent without being too rich, and who doesn’t love coconut and pecans…so tasty! This cake has been crowd tested and approved, which is a good thing to know as a lot of people are hesitant about baking a cake, let alone one that they have no R&D on. This will be your go-to…promise! Until the next favorite comes along. In the meantime, have fun making this one and tailor it to the way that it fits your occasion…details below!

One difference in this cake is mixing the buttermilk and baking soda separately, and then separating the egg yolks and whites, and beating the whites until they peak.

You need to carefully fold the egg whites into the batter that you have mixed…

Before gently mixing in the coconut and pecans as the final step before baking.

While that is baking, you can start preparing the frosting. This is where you can make changes depending on how you want the cake to look and taste. The recipe calls for cream cheese frosting on the outside of the cake, and pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting on the middle layer. This is easily changed if you don’t want the pumpkin spice flavor.

You’ll need to separate part of the frosting when you make it, and add the pumpkin puree and spices to do this. If you want the frosting and cake to be all pumpkin spice cream cheese frosting and have more of a pale orange frosting color, simply don’t separate while mixing and double the pumpkin and spices ( or add to taste) while mixing. I did this last Thanksgiving and it looked and tasted great too! Additionally, if you are making during the year and don’t want to add the pumpkin and spices, just eliminate it totally- no need to substitute anything.

You can see the different frostings, but as I mentioned, you can eliminate the pumpkin and spices from the frosting, and use the cream cheese frosting on all the layers.

The fun part is decorating the cake depending on the holiday or occasion. You can use small pumpkins, hazelnuts or nuts still in shell, cover in coconut, or if making for Christmas and holidays or occasions with red or white roses, trim, garland, etc. You can also decorate for baby or bridal showers, birthdays, etc. This is where you can be creative! Enjoy!

Italian Coconut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:

1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
5 eggs ( separate eggs)
½ cup butter ( 1 stick) room temperature
½ cup cooking oil ( I use coconut oil – it really ups the taste and keeps moist)
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans
7 ounces shredded sweetened coconut ( about ½ bag- I like to add a bit more)

  • Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
  • Mix buttermilk and baking soda together and set aside.
  • In another bowl, separate the egg whites from yolks, set yolks aside and beat egg whites until stiff. I use a Kitchen Aid. Set the whites aside in another bowl.
  • Cream the butter, cooking oil, and sugar until well blended.
  • Add the egg yolks one at a time to the creamed butter and sugar mixture, and beat well after adding each yolk.
  • In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder together.
  • Add the buttermilk and flour mix to the egg mixture, alternating between the two, starting and ending with the flour mixture.
  • Add the vanilla and salt to the batter.
  • Gently fold in the egg whites, stirring carefully until blended but don’t overmix.
  • Finally, add the coconut and pecans and stir this carefully as well.
  • Pour into prepared cake pans ( I spray mine with coconut oil ) and bake for 25 minutes at 350 F, or until a knife comes out of batter mostly clean. You may need to watch the cake towards the end as you don’t want to overbake or underbake.

Cream Cheese Frosting with Pumpkin Spice

Ingredients:

1 cup butter ( 2 sticks) room temperature
16 ounces cream cheese ( 2 packs) room temperature
4 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla

***You can eliminate the below and just combine above for regular cream cheese frosting.

½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cloves
3 tablespoons pumpkin puree

  • Beat butter and cream cheese together, then slowly add powdered sugar and vanilla extract. Mix until smooth.
  • Measure 1 ¾ cups of the frosting, take the rest out, and to the 1 ¾ cups add the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and pumpkin puree. ( if you use pumpkin pie mix you can likely eliminate the spices or use less, I always taste to make sure I like the flavor)
  • Place bottom cake on a cake platter or plate ( make sure the cakes have completely cooled, or you will have runny frosting), and frost the top with the pumpkin frosting. Place the second layer on top and frost the rest of the cake with the plain cream cheese frosting ( or mix all together for the pale orange pumpkin frosting).
  • Decorate with whatever you like for the season or occasion, and enjoy!