Food & Cooking Recipes Dessert & Treats Recipes Cake Recipes Coconut Cloud Cake 4.1 (499) 8 Reviews This light-as-a-cloud dessert features a silky frosting and plenty of crunchy coconut. By Martha Stewart Martha Stewart Martha Stewart is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and lifestyle expert who has taught millions of people through generations the joy of entertaining, cooking, gardening, collecting, crafting, and home renovating via her eponymous magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Emmy-winning television shows, and 99 books (and counting). Based in Katonah, N.Y., where she helms her 156-acre Bedford Farm, Martha is America's first self-made female billionaire. Editorial Guidelines Updated on August 5, 2024 Rate PRINT Share Prep Time: 1 hr Cook Time: 40 mins Total Time: 2 hrs 40 mins Servings: 12 Jump to recipe This cloud cake recipe creates a dessert as light as, well, a cloud. It features an airy cake that’s baked in a tube pan before being sliced, filled, and frosted with our silky seven-minute frosting. Coconut flakes are the final touch, bringing flavor and a light crunch to both the filling and exterior. There are a few tricks to achieving a light-as-air cake: First, you'll sift the flour and some of the sugar together a total of four times, which removes any clumps while also helping to aerate the ingredients. You’ll whip over a carton's worth of egg whites to stiff peaks to form a meringue, then gently but quickly work in the sifted ingredients. Once the cake is baked, all that's left is to whip up the glossy frosting, spread it (and plenty of coconut) between the layers of cake and all over the outside to form a beautiful, cloud-like confection. This ethereal cake for a birthday, shower, or holiday celebration, or just to treat the coconut lover in your life. 30 Easy Cake Recipes Every Home Baker Will Love Grant Webster Equipment for Coconut Cloud Cake Electric mixer: To bring this recipe together, you'll want to lean on 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 a total of four times. This is important to both remove any clumps and incorporate air into the dry ingredients, which helps achieve a super light finished texture. 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—we've got an easy, creative solve for that within the recipe. 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. 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. Can You Make Coconut Cloud Cake Ahead? This cake is best enjoyed the day it's made, and we don't recommend preparing it more than eight hours ahead of serving. That's 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 result in an unpleasantly wet interior. Cook Mode (Keep screen awake) Ingredients For the Cake 1 cup sifted cake flour 1 ½ cups superfine sugar 14 large egg whites (1 ¾ cups), room temperature 1 tablespoon warm water ½ teaspoon salt 1 ½ teaspoons cream of tartar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract For the Seven-Minute Frosting 3 large egg whites 1 ¼ cups sugar 5 tablespoons cold water ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract For the Topping 3 to 4 cups flaked coconut Directions 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 cups 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. 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. 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. Grant Webster Invert pan over bottle to cool: Invert pan on its legs or over the neck of a glass bottle, and let cool completely, about 1 hour. Grant Webster If your tube pan has feet, you can skip the inverting and simply cool the cake in the tube pan on a cooling rack. 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. 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. 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. Grant Webster Spread icing over bottom layer: Spread icing into channel and over entire layer. Sprinkle with coconut. 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. Grant Webster Storing Coconut Cloud Cake Leftover coconut cloud cake can be stored, covered, at room temperature for up to one day. After that, the frosting will begin to deflate and disintegrate and the cake may become overly moist and soggy. How to Use Up All The Egg Yolks Leftover From This Recipe After making this recipe, you'll be left with a whopping seventeen egg yolks. To keep them from going to waste, 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 More Coconut Cake Recipes to Try: Coconut-Buttermilk Pound Cake Coconut Layer Cake Chocolate-Coconut Sheet Cake Coconut Crunch Cake Ultimate Coconut Cake Meyer-Lemon and Coconut Layer Cake Originally appeared: Martha Bakes, March 2011, Martha Bakes, Episode 1006 Rate It PRINT Updated by Esther Reynolds Esther Reynolds Esther Reynolds is an experienced recipe developer, recipe tester, food editor, and freelance writer with over a decade of experience in the food and media industries.