Grandma Barb’s Italian Cream Cake
Watch me make this Italian Cream Cake from start to finish!!
You can ALWAYS find an Italian cream cake at my family holiday shindigs. I think everyone in my family has my grandma Barb’s highly requested Italian Cream cake recipe (and now so do you, welcome to the family!) so it really doesn’t matter who brings it. This recipe is fail-proof and always comes out tasting fabulous!
The cake itself is soft and moist with a super yummy vanilla-coconut-butter flavor. The frosting is a regular cream cheese frosting with coconut and pecans added to compliment the Italian cream cake. It’s delish and even if you don’t like coconut, I bet you’ll still love this cake!
My husband is such a coconut hater. He likes the taste of coconut but not the texture so I make sure to use finely shredded coconut and then process it to break up the flak, even more, when I’m making it for him.
Italian cream cake is such a lovely, elegant, and delicious cake. It’s so easy to make that there is really no reason to wait until a special occasion too. Make it today, just because.

Get the Recipe: Italian Cream Cake
Ingredients
- CAKE
- 1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 2 cups white sugar
- 5 eggs, separated (room temperature)
- 3 teaspoons real vanilla extract
- 2 cups cake flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
- 1 cup real buttermilk, (room temperature)
- 1 1/2 cup finely shredded sweetened coconut flakes
- FROSTING
- 16 oz cream cheese, room tempt.
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 4 cups confectioners sugar
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1 1/2 cups finely shredded sweetened coconut
- 1 1/2 cups pecans pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325.
- Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans. Set aside.
- In a large bowl cream together shortening, butter and sugar.
- Add egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- In a separate bowl combine flour and baking soda.
- Alternate adding the buttermilk and flour into the sugar mixture. Starting and ending with the buttermilk. Be sure to mix well after each addition.
- Stir in vanilla.
- In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
- Fold egg whites into batter.
- Stir in coconuts and pecans.
- Pour batter into prepared pans and bake for 25-27 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let cakes sit in pans for 5 minutes before removing from pans and placing on a cooling rack to finish cooling.
- Make the frosting by creaming together cream cheese, butter, vanilla and confectioners sugar.
- Stir in coconut and pecans.
- Frost & decorate cooled cake layers as desired (see video to see how I frost and decorated)
Video
Notes
Store in the fridge. Remove and let come to room temperature before serving.
I didn’t think I was going to like this cake. It is so good! I used 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Cake was so moist.
Have made this cake several times. It ruins you when you have a boxed cake mix! Just not close to this delicious cake. More work (not too much) but definitely worth it. I highly recommend trying it once and you will certainly be addicted!
So if I leave the pecans out would this make a good coconut cake?
I’ve been making this cake every year for thanksgiving for about 4 years now. I noticed I always have a lot of frosting left over. This year I only used half the cream cheese and I had just enough. I didn’t notice a difference to the taste so hopefully it turned out fine lol
So good to hear someone else had lots of icing left. I find I do too so next time I will half it too. Thanks