Food & Cooking Recipes Dessert & Treats Recipes Cake Recipes Coconut Cloud Cake 4.1 (501) This light-as-a-cloud dessert features a silky frosting and plenty of crunchy coconut. Prep Time: 1 hr Cook Time: 40 mins Total Time: 2 hrs 40 mins Servings: 12 Jump to recipe Our coconut cloud cake recipe creates a dessert as light as, well, a cloud. It features an airy vanilla cake that’s baked in a tube pan before being sliced, filled, and topped with our silky seven-minute frosting. Coconut flakes are the final touch, bringing flavor and a light crunch to both the filling and exterior. Besides a tube pan, you’ll need an electric mixer and a sifter or fine-mesh sieve—they’re crucial for achieving an impossibly light cake and fluffy frosting. Serve this ethereal dessert for a birthday, shower, or holiday celebration—or just to treat the coconut lover in your life. 31 Easy Cake Recipes Every Home Baker Will Love Credit: Grant Webster Equipment for Coconut Cloud Cake Electric mixer: To bring this recipe together, use an electric mixer (preferably a stand mixer). It's essential for whipping the 14 egg whites needed for the cake to stiff peaks, a step that's responsible for the finished cake's light and airy texture. You'll also need it to beat the frosting until it's thick, glossy, and spreadable. While you can use a hand-held mixer for these steps, it will take quite a bit more time than a stand mixer and may leave you with sore arm muscles. Sifter: Use a sifter or fine-mesh sieve to sift the flour and sugar for the cake. While other swaps exist—such as using a colander or simply whisking the dry ingredients to incorporate air—we don't recommend them for a cake as delicate as this. Tube pan: A tube pan is a straight-sided cake pan with a hollow tube in the center. Often referred to as an angel food cake pan, its unique shape allows the batter to climb up the sides as the cake bakes to gain as much height and loftiness as possible. Tube pans often have removable feet on the bottom, which make it easy to cool and remove the cake from the pan. If your pan doesn't feature these, don't worry—you can invert it over the neck of a wine bottle instead. Offset spatula: An offset spatula does double duty here: It's used to break up any air bubbles in the batter and smooth the top before baking. We call on it again to gently spread the frosting onto the cake. No offset spatula? Grab a butter knife instead. 3 Tips for a Light-as-Air Cake Sift and sift some more: Sifting the flour and some of the sugar together a total of four times removes any clumps while also aerating the ingredients. Don't skimp on this step—it really makes a difference. Add dry ingredients gradually: When adding the flour-sugar mixture to the whipped egg whites, do so in six additions. Working it in gradually helps prevent over-mixing, which can deflate the airy foam. Skip the grease: Unlike most cake recipes, the pan for this one should not be greased. It's the ungreased sides that allow the batter to climb up the pan as the cake bakes, resulting in the tallest finished result. What Is Seven-Minute Frosting? Seven-minute frosting is essentially a Swiss meringue, i.e., a mixture of egg whites and sugar that is cooked together until the sugar is dissolved, then beaten with an electric mixer until shiny and thickened. It's been around since the early 20th century and has a marshmallowy taste that complements everything from lemon-flavored cakes to rich, chocolatey ones. And while some recipes take exactly seven minutes to make, the timing will vary depending on the ratio of egg whites to sugar used. A word of advice: Wait to make the frosting until the cake is fully cooled. Seven-minute frosting has a tendency to set up quickly and will be easiest to spread just after it's been whipped up to glossy perfection. Because seven-minute frosting is made with undercooked egg whites, we don't recommend it be served to pregnant women, very young children, or anyone else with a compromised immune system. For a safe workaround, you can use pasteurized egg whites for the frosting instead. Directions Credit: Grant Webster Heat oven; sift cake flour and sugar: Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a fine sieve, sift together flour and 3/4 cup sugar four times. Beat egg whites: In the bowl of a stand mixer on medium speed, beat together egg whites and water until foamy. Add salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla; beat until soft peaks form. Increase speed to medium-high and sprinkle in remaining sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time. Beat until stiff but not dry. Credit: Grant Webster Sift dry ingredients over meringue: Transfer to a large bowl. In six additions, sift dry ingredients over meringue, folding in quickly but gently. Credit: Grant Webster Transfer batter to tube pan: Pour batter into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan with removable bottom. Smooth top with an offset spatula. Run a knife through batter to release air bubbles. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until golden brown and springy to touch. Credit: Grant Webster Invert pan to cool: Invert pan on its legs or over the neck of a glass bottle, and let cool completely, about 1 hour. Credit: Grant Webster Make frosting: In the heatproof bowl of an electric mixer set over a saucepan of simmering water, combine egg whites, sugar, water, and cream of tartar. Cook over medium heat, whisking frequently, until sugar is dissolved and mixture is foamy, about 5 minutes. Credit: Grant Webster To check whether the sugar is fully dissolved, rub a bit of the egg white mixture between your fingers; if you feel any graininess, continue cooking and whisking. Beat frosting and add vanilla: Attach the bowl to a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat the mixture on high speed until glossy and voluminous, about 7 minutes. Beat in the vanilla. Credit: Grant Webster Release cake from pan; slice cake horizontally and cut channel in bottom half: Carefully run a long offset spatula or knife around the inner and outer perimeter of the cake pan to release cake. Place on a plate, bottom side up. Using a long serrated knife, carefully slice off 1 1/2 inches from the top of the cake, being sure not to break the layer. Set aside. Cut out a 1-inch-wide, 1-inch-deep channel halfway between the center and edge of cake. Credit: Grant Webster Spread icing over bottom layer: Spread icing into channel and over entire layer. Sprinkle with coconut. Credit: Grant Webster Add top layer and spread with frosting: Gently place reserved layer on top and ice with remaining frosting. Sprinkle with coconut and serve immediately. Credit: Grant Webster How to Store Leftovers Leftover coconut cloud cake can be stored, covered, at room temperature for up to 1 day. Longer than that and the cake will slowly start to absorb the moisture from the frosting, which can dry out the exterior and result in an unpleasantly wet interior. What to Do With All Those Leftover Yolks After making this recipe, you'll be left with a whopping seventeen egg yolks. Consider putting them to use in the following ways: Make an aioli or mayonnaise Whip up a custard dessert like these chocolate pots de crème or this lemony custard pie Try your hand at a classic Caesar dressing Give our creamy carbonara a go Make a batch of rich, custard-based ice cream Frequently Asked Questions Can coconut cloud cake be made ahead? No, coconut cloud cake should not be made ahead. This dessert is best enjoyed the day it's made—we don't recommend preparing it more than eight hours ahead of serving. This is because, as the finished creation sits, the cake will slowly start to absorb the moisture from the frosting, which can dry out the exterior and produce an unpleasantly wet interior. Can another type of flour be used for this cake? No, another type of flour should not be used for this cake. For a light, tender texture, we use cake flour, which is low in protein and milled very finely. Swapping in all-purpose flour will throw off the texture, making for a tougher cake that won't rise as well. Can this recipe be made by hand? No, we do not suggest making this recipe by hand. Both the cake and frosting require a lot of mixing to incorporate as much air as possible, and this is best done with an electric mixer. A stand mixer is our preferred tool as it will free up your hands to add the other ingredients, but you can use a hand-held mixer in a pinch. 5 More Coconut Cake Recipes to Try Coconut-Buttermilk Pound Cake Ultimate Coconut Cake Chocolate-Coconut Sheet Cake Coconut Crunch Cake Meyer-Lemon and Coconut Layer Cake Updated by Esther Reynolds Esther Reynolds Esther Reynolds is an experienced recipe developer, recipe tester, food editor, and writer with over a decade of experience in the food and media industries.