Toasted Coconut Poke Cake is a great make-ahead dessert for serving a crowd!
As a kid you couldn’t get me to eat coconut. Now that I’m older and wiser 🙂 I just love coconut. I like adding it to cookies and to cakes. I think it gives baked goods such a great flavor and texture. I decided I wanted to make a coconut cake and as I was coming up with the recipe, I thought a toasted coconut poke cake would be so good!
I don’t know if you’ve ever made a poke cake before, but they are really easy. I thought I’d give you a quick tutorial just in case you’ve never made one before. The first thing you start out with is a cake. I usually use a boxed cake mix for poke cakes. It won’t taste like a boxed cake mix once you’re done. Bake the cake according to package instructions and as soon as you pull it out of the oven, poke a bunch of holes in the cake. You can use a variety of different things. The end of a wooden spoon works, but for this I used a big serving fork.
Once all the holes are poked, slowly pour over whatever it is you want to soak up in your cake. For this cake I used a combination of sweetened condensed milk and coconut milk. Pour it over the cake slowly so it can soak into the holes. It will also fall to the sides of the cake. Try and get as much as you can into the holes on the top of the cake.
The cake should still be warm so put it in the fridge to continue to cool down and it will soak up all the yummy flavor. Once it’s cooled, top it with cool whip or pudding or whatever you like on top.
For this cake, since it was all about coconut, I topped it with some toasted coconut. I didn’t know how much I would love toasted coconut! It brings out the flavor in the coconut and creates such a sweet nutty flavor. If you don’t know how to toast coconut I’ve got a tutorial on how to toast coconut. It really is easy and only takes 10 minutes.
My kids lapped up this cake. They really loved the toasted coconut top. If they liked it, you know that the coconut lover in your life is going to appreciate all the work you put into making this toasted coconut poke cake. They don’t have to know how easy it.

Ingredients
- 1 box white cake mix eggs, water, oil according to package
- 1 sm can sweetened condensed milk
- 1 cup coconut milk
- 8 ounces cool whip thawed (store-bought or homemade)
- 1 cup toasted coconut
Instructions
- Prepare and bake cake according to package instructions.
- Once done baking, remove cake from oven and poke holes all over top of cake.
- Mix together sweetened condensed milk and coconut milk.
- Slowly pour over warm cake.
- Chill in fridge.
- Cover top with cool whip.
- Sprinkle toasted coconut over top of cake
Notes
If you thought this cake was easy and you love butterfingers, you will love my butterfinger better than anything cake.
Ducks 'n a Row (@SineaPies) says
Aubrey, this cake is beautiful. Perfect for bringing to a potluck. I can hear the oohs and ahhs now! Yummed and pinned 🙂