Tom Cruise Cake (White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake)

Tom Cruise Cake Recipe – Copycat Doan’s Bakery White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake. Tom Cruise sends this cake to all of his A-List celebrity friends for Christmas. I can see why – it is AMAZING! Moist coconut pound cake with chunks of sweet white chocolate topped with homemade cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut. One bite and you will be blown away. A must for your next celebration or get-together!

Remember this recipe.

Pin this recipe to your favorite board now to remember it later!

Pin This Recipe

White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake

Have you heard of the Tom Cruise Cake? It is a White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake from Doan’s Bakery that Tom Cruise sends as a gift to all his famous friends at Christmas. The cake is a moist coconut bundt cake with chunks of sweet white chocolate topped with a rich cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut flakes. I’ve been reading about this cake for years and finally decided to make a version at home. OMG! Let me tell you, this is the best coconut cake I’ve ever eaten! This is a super moist cake and is packed full of amazing coconut flavor! This cake is a must for coconut fans!

sliced white chocolate coconut cake on a plate

How to Make Tom Cruise’s Favorite Cake

This cake is very easy to make with only a few ingredients. Grease and flour a 15-cup bundt cake pan. Set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter, sugar, coconut extract, and vanilla extract. Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs to the mixer one at a time. Reduce the speed and add coconut cream pudding. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Add the flour mixture alternately with the sour cream to the mixing bowl. Mix on low speed until fully combined. Stir in the finely chopped white chocolate. Spoon cake batter into the prepared pan and bake until a cake tester inserted into the center of the cake comes back clean. Remove from oven and let cool in pan on a cooling rack for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Place shredded coconut on a baking sheet and bake in the oven for a few minutes, until it starts to turn golden brown. In a large bowl, beat together cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Spread the frosting over the top of the cake. Press toasted coconut into the frosting. 

Tips & Frequently Asked Questions

  • Do not make the pudding. You are only going to use the dry mix.
    • I buy the coconut cream pudding at Walmart.
    • If you can’t find coconut cream pudding, you can substitute white chocolate pudding or vanilla pudding and increase the coconut extract in the batter.
  • I used a 15-cup Bundt cake pan. If you do not have the larger bundt cake pan, you can make this cake in a tube pan.
    • If you make this in a 12-cup bundt pan, make sure to not overfill the pan. Leave at least 1½ to 2-inches unfilled. You may have leftover batter.
  • I use a white chocolate bar. You can substitute an equal amount of white chocolate chips. 
  • One cup of flour weighs 4.25-ounces or 120 grams. To properly measure flour, give the flour a stir to loosen it up in the container. Use a spoon and lightly spoon the flour into your measuring cup. Use a flat straight edge (like the straight back of a knife) to level off the top of the flour in the measuring cup. Do NOT compact the flour in the measuring cup.
  • I use Bakers Joy or Pam Baking Spray to grease and flour the tube pan. Either works great. You can also use Crisco or butter and dust the pan with flour.
  • Can pound cake be made in advance? Yes! You can make the cake ahead of time and store it in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days. The cake will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week.
  • Can pound cake be frozen? Yes! You can freeze the baked cake. Wrap the cooled cake in plastic wrap and aluminum foil. The cake will keep for up to 6 months in the freezer.
slice of white chocolate coconut cake on a plate

Delicious Coconut Bundt Cake Recipe Scratch

This cake has quickly become one of our favorite desserts. It is a coconut lovers dream! I took this delicious cake to a potluck and it received rave reviews. This cake is the perfect addition to any cookout, dinner party, or holiday meal. You must make this decadent cake ASAP!

Looking for more dessert recipes? Here are a few of our easy dessert recipes from the blog:

Tom Cruise Cake (White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake)

Yield: 12 people
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 45 minutes
Tom Cruise Cake Recipe – Copycat Doan's Bakery White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake. Tom Cruise sends this cake to all of his celebrity friends for Christmas. I can see why – it is AMAZING! Moist coconut pound cake with chunks of sweet white chocolate topped with homemade cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut. One bite and you will be blown away. A must for your next celebration or get-together!

Ingredients:

Cake

Cream Cheese Frosting

Instructions:

Cake

  • Preheat oven to 325ºF. Butter and flour a 15-cup Bundt pan. Set aside.
  • Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda. Set aside.
  • Cream together butter, sugar, vanilla, and coconut extract. Beat for 2 to 3 minutes, or until light and pale yellow in color. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition, stopping and scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
  • Add pudding mix to the batter and mix.
  • Reduce the speed of the mixer and add the sifted dry ingredients alternately with the sour cream. Mix until fully combined. Stir in the finely chopped white chocolate by hand.
  • Spoon batter into prepared pan and place in the oven.
  • Bake, placing a piece of aluminum foil on top to prevent over browning, if needed, for 1 hour 30 minutes to 1 hour 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes back clean.
  • Remove from oven and let cool in pan on a cooling rack for 15 minutes, then remove from the pan and let cool completely.

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • In a large bowl, beat together cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract with a hand mixer until light and fluffy.
  • Spread the frosting over the top of the cake. Press toasted coconut into the frosting. 

Notes:

  • Do not make the pudding. You are only going to use the dry mix.
    • I buy the coconut cream pudding at Walmart.
    • If you can’t find coconut cream pudding, you can substitute white chocolate pudding or vanilla pudding and increase the coconut extract in the batter.
  • I used a 15-cup Bundt cake pan. If you do not have the larger bundt cake pan, you can make this cake in a tube pan.
    • If you make this in a 12-cup bundt pan, make sure to not overfill the pan. Leave at least 1½ to 2-inches unfilled. You may have leftover batter.
  • I use a white chocolate bar. You can substitute an equal amount of white chocolate chips. 
  • One cup of  flour weighs 4.25-ounces or 120 grams. To properly measure flour, give the flour a stir to loosen it up in the container. Use a spoon and lightly spoon the flour into your measuring cup. Use a flat straight edge (like the straight back of a knife) to level off the top of the flour in the measuring cup. Do NOT compact the flour in the measuring cup.
  • I use Bakers Joy or Pam Baking Spray to grease and flour the tube pan. Either works great. You can also use Crisco or butter and dust the pan with flour.
  • Can pound cake be made in advance? Yes! You can make the cake ahead of time and store it in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days. The cake will keep in the refrigerator for up to a week.
  • Can pound cake be frozen? Yes! You can freeze the baked cake. Wrap the cooled cake in plastic wrap and aluminum foil. The cake will keep for up to 6 months in the freezer.
 
As seen on Yahoo: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/how-to-make-tom-cruise-coconut-cake-190549937.html

Steph

Remember this recipe.

Pin this recipe to your favorite board now to remember it later!

Pin This Recipe
sliced coconut cake on a plate with text overaly
coconut cake on a cake platter with text overaly
slice of coconut cake on a plate with text overlay

Categories:

Tags:

You Might Also Like

See All Cake

S’mores Dump Cake

S’mores Dump Cake – Gooey, chocolaty, and downright irresistible! This easy dessert will transport you back to those campfire nights…

Butter Brickle Poke Cake

Butter Brickle Poke Cake – a moist and fluffy buttery cake infused with a velvety caramel sauce. With every forkful,…

Apple Crumb Cake

Apple Crumb Cake recipe – a perfect blend of moist and tender apple-infused cake, topped with a buttery and crumbly streusel…

Butterfinger Pound Cake

Butterfinger Pound Cake Recipe –  the best candy bar cake around! Yellow pound cake filled with tons of crushed Butterfinger…

Comments

  1. Excellent cake but would love more coconut flavor. Just wondering if anyone has substituted coconut oil for some of the butter?

  2. Delicious cake, super moist and fluffy texture. Great flavors and really easy instructions to follow. I beat the batter too long so I had enough for a bundt cake as well as 12 cupcakes. Went over well at work, daycare and with my friends.

  3. There are several different recipes for this cake but I went with this one because of the pudding mix and sour cream. I had white chocolate pudding mix and used that with extra coconut extract. I have been baking for over 50 years and have many cookbooks etc but this cake…this cake is OMfreakinG!! I was on the phone with my daughter who lives close by and I was eating this cake and just kept raving how good it was. She sent her husband over to pick up a slice and calls me back and tells me holy crap this cake is amazing don’t tell dad. Lol. He loves anything coconut and sweets. When he came home and had slices he was raving to his dad! Damn good cake!! I’ve never had the actual cake as I won’t spend that money but this cake is the best I’ve ever had! Thank you for this recipe!!

  4. Very delicious and decadent cake. As a beginner, I appreciate that your instructions were very easy to follow. I had to sub for vanilla pudding with extra coconut extract (as you suggested) but it turned out perfectly. I had a little more icing than needed but I didn’t mind having extra. Will definitely be making this again, maybe with a bit more coconut extract for more flavour and slightly less sugar. Kudos for this wonderful recipe!

  5. I haven’t made this just yet but curious if they can be made as in cupcakes? If so, what temp and for how long?

    Thank you!

    1. I am sure you can make cupcakes with the batter. I haven’t tested this recipe as cupcakes, so I can not say how long to bake them. You will just have to experiment.

  6. If I could give more then 5 stars I would ! I made this cake at the request of my granddaughter to go along with a school presentation .. It seriously disappeared so fast . Grandma was super grandma lol Thank you so much for posting this delicious cake recipe

  7. Made this for my daughter’s 18th birthday. It was a huge hit… some even claiming it was the best cake they ever ate! It is that good. I followed the recipe exactly as posted and it was awesome. My bundt cake pan may be a bit smaller than what was recommended so the cake was higher than the top edge but ultimately the loaf settled back down once I took it out of the oven. I covered the pan loosely with tin foil for a bit and again near the end as there was some browning along the edge, but the caramelization that formed near the edge was amazing.

  8. What a wonderful cake recipe…if you love the flavor of coconut! A few notes: There are only 3 of us here at the house and so I cut the recipe in half and made it in a 9 x 5 loaf pan. Worked great. I couldn’t get coconut cream pudding at my local (read: tiny) grocery, so I bought vanilla. Since I had vanilla pudding I cut the vanilla extract down by half and added an 25% coconut extract. Only had white chocolate chips (Ghirardelli), but they seems to caramelize in the oven (butterscotch in color) in the cake. Not really a flavor problem, but it did give my cake some tan speckles. I used half the frosting recipe (made as written) and frosted the top and the long sides of the loaf, although I could have done all four sides no problem. Keeps well covered in the fridge, but greatly improves the flavor and texture to eat it at room temperature.
    Now, does this taste like the $80+ cake that Tom Cruise buys? I have no idea. Who would pay $80 for a Bundt cake? But…it’s a decadent morsel for someone who adores coconut! Will I make it again. Absolutely. Thanks for the great recipe!

    1. I’m about to try this recipe and want to make it in a loaf pan since I live alone. I was wondering how long you baked it, and if you kept the oven temp the same or lowered it?

  9. Made cake last weekend. Delicious! Couldn’t find pudding so used vanilla plus extract. I found the cream cheese icing was very good and not too strong.

    Only thing that happened was my husband took it out at 1hr 15 minutes because he “thought ” he smelled it burning and tested it and said it was done. After it cooled and frosted,I cut into it and bottom wasn’t cooked🤦‍♀️ so we just cut it off.

    Next time I won’t go out andrun an errand!

  10. I made this cake today and it is really good!! The only thing that I might adjust is the amount of sugar in the cake. I’ll try using about 2 cups instead of the full 2 3/4 cups; as the full amount of sugar along with the white chocolate, the pudding mix, and then the frosting….it was on its way to being a bit too sweet (for my taste). Since I had extra batter (pan was only a 12 cup), I made another smaller bundt with it; and actually ate part of it as is….without the frosting, and it was sweet enough. But….I’m definitely not knocking this cake at all, as it was YUMMY and I’ll most certainly make it again! 😋😋👩🏽‍🍳

  11. I made this cake for my daughter’s Rehearsal Dinner dessert, and it was such a hit, I’ve shared the recipe a few times already. Today I tried it as cupcakes! Made 36, and had to watch, estimating the baking time. I ended up with a total of 34 minutes, so I would recommend baking for 20. rotating, and bake another 13-15, testing for doneness. I did not use Convect, but will try that next time, as I’m sure I will be making this again. We love it, and anyone who tries it says it’s the best thing they’ve ever eaten! As a caveat, I didn’t use all the icing, made about half, and it was plenty, as a bundt cake doesn’t need to be totally covered. Used half of the coconut, too, and did toast it. I used my 12 cup Pampered Chef Stoneware bundt pan, and it worked fine.

  12. My husband loves white chocolate and coconut. He “states” he is not particularly fond of cream cheese frosting, but here in Arkansas “cream cheese” frosting from the store is usually not great. I decided a couple months ago to make this recipe for his super soft birthday celebration. I made the cake last Saturday. Hands down, the best cake we have ever eaten. Husband said the cream cheese frosting on this worked and he is rethinking his thoughts on cream cheese frosting.

    Followed the recipe exactly for the cake, did need to sub vanilla pudding and add 1 T of coconut extract because of no coconut pudding available here locally.

    On the frosting, I chose to decrease powdered sugar by 25% so 3 cups instead of 4 of powdered sugar.

    The only bad thing about the cake is that you can’t eat it all in one sitting. Ok, so that is not bad.

  13. I made this today and it was delicious!! Had to
    order the pudding from Amazon and I didn’t toast the coconut. It’s a winner! Wish I could show the pictures. 😊

  14. I made half of the recipe and modified the frosting a bit because it was overly sweet for my taste. I added a hint of almond extract and salt to the frosting and it was perfect. The cake didn’t have a lot of flavor to me (I couldn’t even taste the coconut). I used chocolate chips instead of chocolate bar so I’m wondering if that made a difference in the flavor. The frosting and toasted coconut was so delicious that I think it balanced the lack of flavor in the cake. Can you describe what the flavor of the cake should be like? Maybe that’ll tell me where I lacked. Thank you for sharing!!

  15. I made this for Thanksgiving and it was wonderful. Exactly as written (but didn’t toast the coconut because Doan Bakery does not do that) The cake is basically a wonderful pound cake with a hint of coconut. I had a bit extra and made two mini bundts and ate those unfosted…Omg yum edge had almost a cookie taste. Personally I would cut back on the sugar in frosting next time and use unsweetned coconut. This cake is a winner and definitely serve at about room temp. Doan is just down the street from me and they strongly suggest room temp. 3 days later it is still great..Thank you for the recipe.

    1. I am curious to how close you think it replicated Doan’s as you live near it. I just made it and it is in the oven so I have not tasted this one. The batter was delicious! I ordered the Doan’s one time but at $100 including shipping am looking for a close relica for my family to enjoy over the holiday. Thanks in advance. Joy

    1. You can make this in any pan you want. You will have to experiment with cooking times. I made it as written.

  16. This is in my oven as I write this. My house smells great, can’t wait to try this. I am wondering if you have a good (or any) vanilla/coconut frosting to go on top of this, as I do not like cream cheese (or any cheese). Please respond quickly. Thank you!!

  17. Great cake! Only gave it 4 stars because I thought the coconut extract was a little too strong and too artificial tasting for me. Maybe I’ll cut back on it next time or replace with a coconut cream instead. Otherwise, one of the best cakes I’ve made. Especially enjoyed the bits of white chocolate…what a wonderful surprise. Thanks for the recipe!

  18. Do you recommend salted or unsalted butter? Can’t find it specified anywhere. Thanks in advance!

  19. I’ve not yet made this cake but purchased all the needed ingredients – I even found the coconut cream pudding. Just questioning the 2 3/4 cups of sugar needed. With the pudding mix, white chocolate, and powdered sugar in the frosting, can the 2 3/4 cups be reduced at all? Afraid that the cake will be too sweet.

    1. The cake is amazing as written. Any changes to the recipe would be up to you. I can not say how it will taste with any adjustments.

    2. Hi! I made this recipe with 75% of the sugar and it not affect the cake texture negatively at all. I would recommend it.

  20. Made this cake and loved it.i couldn’t find c.c.nut pudding mix so did vanilla. Definitely add at least 2 TBLS of extract if you do the same. I didn’t do enough, so cake still tasted faint. But the shredded was enough of the flavor for my family. This ismy new goto recipe for any function. So easy.

  21. This cake sounds amazing! I would love to make it but I have not been able to find the coconut pudding mix in my area for months (I have another cake recipe that calls for it in the ingredients). Are you able to find it in Birmingham? At what store? I may have to get my SIL to get some and mail it to me.

    1. I thought my grocery store didn’t have it until I pulled up a picture of it online. Here, the Jell-O boxes are not only of Jell-O but of different kinds of pudding. Pull up a picture of the box online. I’ll bet your grocery store has it

Leave a Comment

Recipe Rating