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If you love coconut, you will LOVE this Coconut Cream Poke Cake! It is full of coconut flavor, and it is so moist! Perfect for holidays, potlucks, and summer picnics!
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When I came up with this recipe, I’d been dying to make something new in my kitchen, though I wasn’t sure what! Coconut sounded good to me, and poke cake sounded good too. So I thought, why not combine the two?! So I whipped up this coconut cream poke cake, and good gosh, it hit the spot.
You can have it at home with a hot cup of coffee, but it’s also amazing for potlucks and cookouts. Trust me on that one!! It’s super moist – and since it starts with a boxed cake mix, it’s so easy to prep for an event or get-together!
Even if you’re not a huge fan of coconut, you’ll probably enjoy coconut cream poke cake. It’s just that good and surprisingly filling for a dessert, too.
By the way, a poke cake is just a standard cake with holes poked into it so that you can drizzle a flavored filling into the holes and over the cake. Nothing too fancy! Although, with how good this coconut poke cake tastes, your friends may not believe you’re not a professional baker. 😉
Coconut Cream Poke Cake: Ingredients & Substitutions
To make this recipe for coconut poke cake, you will need…
Ingredients
- White cake mix, eggs, vegetable oil, milk, and vanilla – Your standard baking ingredients! For the white cake mix, feel free to use any of your favorite brands. Just make sure it’s a relatively neutral flavor, since we’re going to be adding lots and lots of coconut!
- Coconut cream pudding mix – You’ll add this to the above cake mix to make a coconut-flavored cake. Yum!!
- Cream of coconut, condensed milk – Poke cakes always need a gooey filling, and these two ingredients will easily create that. You can usually find cream of coconut, by the way, in the international section of the store – or check the alcohol aisle. Goya, Costamar and Coco Lopez are some fairly common brands.
- Cool Whip, sweetened coconut flakes – Your coconut cream poke cake toppings.
Coconut Cream Poke Cake: FAQs
Less than an hour – but you’ll want to also account for some chilling time! You can do the prep in 10 minutes and bake it up in 35 minutes. It’s so quick and easy!!
One 9×13 inch cake, which you can usually cut into about 18 to 24 slices/servings.
No, you need to use cream of coconut in this recipe! It’s an easy mistake to confuse the two, but the cream of coconut has a higher fat content, which is what this recipe needs.
I highly recommend it. You’ll definitely taste the difference. In fact, leaving it in the fridge overnight is even better. But if you’re in a rush, it’s not like it’s inedible if you eat it immediately!
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Coconut Cream Poke Cake
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Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 box white cake mix (any brand), 15.25 oz.
- 3 large eggs
- 1 cup milk
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- 1 box coconut cream instant pudding, 3.4 oz.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 can cream of coconut, 15 oz.
- 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 14 oz.
- 8 oz. container of Cool Whip, thawed
- sweetened coconut flakes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray a 9×13-inch baking pan with cooking spray.
- Mix together the cake mix, eggs, milk, oil, instant pudding, and vanilla until smooth. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 32-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Mix the cream of coconut and sweetened condensed milk in a medium bowl. Poke holes in the hot cake with the round end of a wooden spoon and slowly pour this mixture over the cake, trying to fill the holes. Let the cake cool completely.
- When the cake is completely cool, top with Cool Whip and sprinkle with the desired amount of sweetened coconut flakes.
- Refrigerate at least 8 hours before serving.
Notes
- This recipe needs time to allow the cake to absorb all of the yummy coconut flavors. At the very minimum, I would let it sit for two hours. The closer you can get to eight hours, the better!
- This Coconut Cream Poke Cake is even better the next day (if you can wait that long!).
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Originally published on April 17, 2013. Updated on February 22, 2022.
Does this cake need to be refrigerated after serving?
Yes. It should be kept refrigerated.
Can these cake be frozen after it’s completely finished?
Yes!
Baked this cake today and it was wonderful, definitely a keeper recipe. I did add about ¾ cup of coconut to the batter. I also sprinkled a bit of coconut over the cream of coconut/eagle brand milk mixture before topping with the cool whip and more coconut. I thought it would be overly sweet but it wasn’t. I did omit the pudding as I didn’t have it, still turned out perfect. Using milk and a stick of melted butter instead of oil yielded a fluffy moist delicious.
Hello! I’ve made this before and it’s a family favorite. At the same time I can’t for the life of me remember if I’m supposed to make the pudding and add it as “wet” or just put the powdered pudding in under step number two?! Thank you for your help 🙂
The pudding mix goes into the cake mix dry. Hope that helps!
Use instant pudding and add it to the cake batter.
This is wonderful to make using a dark fudge cake. Tastes like a mounds candybar!
Making this tonight!! Can't hardly wait till it cools for the 8 hours!!
Okay so I made a last decision to make this as my birthday cake and let me tell you!!!!!! This cake is AMAZING!!! My father just got told that he couldn't have nuts so I didn't want to make the family favorite german chocolate cake and I found this recipe and gave it a try and it will forever be my birthday cake!!! I added a little coconut to the cake batter and for the topping didn't even use half a tub of whipped cream but then I also put toasted and untoasted coconut on top and everyone in my family went nuts for this cake, didn't even last 4 days (german chocolate which is loved usually last a week minimum) Anyone who loved coconut should give this a try.
Make this every year but I put a can of drained chrushed pineapple on after the cream of coconut and condensed milk, then the cool whip.
I made this last week. People think I'm a god now. Thank you for such an easy and delicious recipe!
I can't find coconut instant pudding. Can I use cooked pudding mix instead?
I'm not sure how it would turn out with cooked pudding since I've never used it. If you try it, I would love to hear how it turned out!