Lemon Coconut Cake (Doctored Cake Mix)

This delicious Lemon Coconut Cake has a velvety soft texture and wonderful flavor!

Soft lemon cake layers are glazed with luscious lemon curd and filled and frosted with whipped coconut cream cheese frosting in this delicious dessert. Nobody would guess that this is a cake mix recipe!

We love this combination of flavors and actually have a scratch version of Lemon Coconut Cake in our Cake Recipes section as well!

Easy Lemon Coconut Cake Mix Recipe

You can find the full, printable cake recipe further down in this post. Here is a quick rundown of our steps! **Note: Ignore the instructions on your box of cake mix.

• Preheat: Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

• Prepare the Pans: Grease and flour three 8x2 round cake pans. We like to line the bottom with parchment paper also.

• Dry Ingredients: In the bowl of your mixer, combine the dry ingredients: white cake mix, cake flour, sugar, and salt. Mix to combine.

• Milk & Lemon Mixture: Next, Add lemon juice, lemon extract, and lemon zest to the 1 ¼ cup milk (It will turn to a thickened, buttermilk consistency).

• Add Remaining Ingredients: Add eggs, cream cheese, vegetable oil, and milk/lemon mixture to the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl.

• Mixing: Mix on medium speed with an electric mixer (we used a stand mixer with paddle attachment) for 2 minutes. You can stop at the halfway point to scrape the sides of the bowl down with a rubber spatula if needed).

• Fill the Pans: Divide the cake batter between the three prepared 8 inch cake pans. Bake at 325 for 22-25 minutes. Baking times may vary, check with a toothpick or wooden skewer for doneness- if it comes out with no crumbs or just a few attached, they are ready.

• Cool the Layers: Cool the freshly baked cake layers in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning out.

How to Make Lemon Curd Filling

Lemon lovers will fall in love this this flavorful lemon curd filling! This is our go-to lemon filling- it is easy to make and so delicious.

Because our cake layers have a light lemon flavor, the lemon curd filling gives it a wonderful lemony boost of flavor.

Here are the steps, but you can find the full recipe further down in this post!

1. First, Combine sugar, cornstarch and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly, until mixture thickens.
2. Boil, stirring, for 1 minute more.. Remove the pan from the heat.

3. Spoon about ½ cup of the hot mixture into a small bowl with egg yolks and stir quickly until combined. Continue stirring, while pouring the egg mixture back into the saucepan.

4. Return pan to medium heat and cook, stirring, until the curd is thickened and lemon colored (1-2 min). Remove from heat and mix in the butter, lemon juice, and lemon zest.
5. Let the lemon curd cool, then press plastic wrap onto the surface, this will prevent a skin from forming on the top. It will cool more quickly if you pour into a shallow baking dish like a 9x12 casserole dish, etc.
6. Refrigerate until you are ready to assemble the cake. It should be cool when assembling the lemon coconut cake.

Frosting for Easy Lemon Coconut Cake

We used a light and delicious whipped coconut cream cheese frosting as a filling (along with the lemon curd) and as a frosting for our cake.

You could have also used a coconut cream cheese frosting (not whipped) or a coconut buttercream frosting (add 1 teaspoon coconut extract to our Classic Vanilla Buttercream recipe).

However, we wanted to go with something nice and light! The consistency of whipped coconut cream cheese frosting is much like whipped cream, but with a bit more stability.

It also has a hint of tanginess from the sweetened, softened cream cheese folded into it.

Assembling the Easy Lemon Coconut Cake

Place the first lemon cake layer on the cake plate or pedestal.

Pipe a dam of the whipped cream cheese frosting around the edge of the cake layer (about ¼ inch to ½ inch from the edge).

Fill with a layer of lemon curd, followed by a layer of whipped coconut cream cheese frosting. (I applied the dam as well as the filling with a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away.)

As you can see, I piped a spiral of the cream filling on top of the lemon curd, and then lightly spread it with an offset spatula.

This is much easier than trying to spread frosting on top of the very soft lemon curd filling.

Repeat for the second cake layer, and then top with the third cake layer. Fill in any gaps between the cake layers with additional frosting.

Frost the cake with a layer of the coconut whipped cream cheese frosting. Then, press coconut all over the sides and top of the cake.

We had some leftover frosting which we used to pipe stars around the top edge of the cake with a french tip, and then we topped with small lemon wedges.

Recipe FAQs

More Lemon Cake Recipes

We LOVE lemon desserts and have made many lemon cake recipes over the years!

I'm going to list a few of our favorites below (including another doctored lemon cake mix recipe), but you can find our full roundup of popular lemon cake recipes here: The Best Lemon Cake Recipes

Some of our most popular are our Scratch Lemon Cake, Limoncello Cake, Lemon Mascarpone Cake, and Lemon Blueberry Cake!

Enjoy the Recipe!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Don't miss our full Cake Recipes section, including our cake recipes from scratch and cake mix recipes!

Lemon Coconut Cake (Doctored Cake Mix Recipe)

BY Melissa and Bebe

This moist Lemon Coconut Cake from Cake Mix is so soft, moist, and delicious! You will love the combination of lemon cake layers with lemon curd filling and coconut whipped cream cheese frosting! The cake is covered in a coat of flaked coconut as well for a beautiful, impressive dessert

Course: Dessert

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Ingredients

• ▢ 1 box white cake mix Do not follow directions on the box, use only the ingredients listed below. We used Duncan Hines Perfectly Moist Classic White cake mix
• ▢ 1 cup cake flour (121g)
• ▢ 1 cup sugar (200g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon salt (3g)
• ▢ 1 package 8oz Cream Cheese- (Not Reduced Fat), Allow to soften completely
• ▢ ¼ cup vegetable oil we use canola
• ▢ 1 ¼ cup milk we used whole milk
• ▢ Zest and juice of one lemon this is about 1 T zest, ¼ cup juice
• ▢ 1 Tablespoon Lemon Extract smell it to make sure it is still good- it should smell lemony
• ▢ 4 whole eggs

For the Lemon Curd

• ▢ ¾ cup sugar (150g)
• ▢ ¼ cup cornstarch (30g)
• ▢ 1 cup water (236g)
• ▢ 2 large egg yolks lightly beaten
• ▢ 2 Tablespoons butter (28g)
• ▢ 1 Tablespoon grated lemon zest
• ▢ 4 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice

For the Whipped Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

• ▢ 8 oz cream cheese (226g) (We use one 8 oz package, full fat).
• ▢ 1 cup powdered sugar, measure then sift (115g)
• ▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (4g)
• ▢ ½ teaspoon coconut extract (adjust amount to your liking) (2g)
• ▢ 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream (348g)

Decoration

• ▢ 14 oz Sweetened Coconut (We use Baker's Sweetened Angel Flake Coconut) (396g) (to press into the frosting on the outside of the cake)
• ▢ Small fresh lemon wedges for garnish

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.
  
• Grease and flour three 8x2 round cake pans. We like to line the bottom with parchment also.
  
• In the bowl of your mixer, combine the dry ingredients: cake mix, cake flour, sugar, and salt. Mix or stir to combine.
  
• Add lemon juice, lemon extract, and lemon zest to the 1 ¼ cup milk (It will turn to a buttermilk consistency).
  
• Add eggs, cream cheese, vegetable oil, and milk/lemon mixture to the dry ingredients
  Mix on medium speed for 2 minutes. (Stop at the halfway point to scrape the sides of the bowl if needed).
  
• Divide the cake batter between the three prepared 8 inch cake pans. Bake at 325 for 22-25 minutes. Baking times may vary, the cake is done when a toothpick can be and inserted and removed with no crumbs (or just a few) attached. Or, if you can lightly touch the center and it springs pack, it is done.

For the Lemon Curd

• Combine sugar, cornstarch and water in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly, until mixture thickens and comes to a boil (3-4 minutes).
• Boil, stirring, for 1 minute more.. Remove the pan from the heat.
• Spoon about ½ cup of the hot mixture into a small bowl with egg yolks and stir quickly until combined. Continue stirring, while pouring the egg mixture back into the saucepan.
• Return pan to medium heat and cook, stirring, until the curd is thickened and lemon colored (1-2 min). Remove from heat and stir in the butter, lemon juice, and lemon zest.-- Let the lemon curd cool, then press plastic wrap onto the surface, this will prevent a skin from forming on the top. Refrigerate.
• This will fill a 2-3 layer 8 or 9 inch cake with some leftover. The recipe can be halved.
• I have refrigerated the lemon curd for a week and it was fine....I'm not sure how long it will keep beyond that
• Makes 1 ¼ cups

Whipped Coconut Cream Cheese Frosting

• Freeze your mixing bowl and beaters 15 minutes before whipping the cream (30 minutes if chilling in the refrigerator. 
• Use the whisk attachment for a stand mixer, or beaters on your hand mixer.  Beat the cream until stiff peaks form. This can happen very quickly so don't walk away from the mixer.  You are at the stiff peak stage when you lift the beater and the cream stands straight up forming a peak or falls over slightly. Keep in the refrigerator while completing the next step.  
• In another bowl combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar, coconut extract, and vanilla.  Mix until very smooth.  Fold this into the whipped cream. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Assembling the Cake

• Place the first cake on a cake plate or pedestal. Pipe a dam of the coconut whipped cream cheese frosting around the edge of the cake layer (about ¼-1/2 inch from the edge).
• Spread a layer of lemon curd within the dam. Then pipe on the whipped coconut cream cheese filling. I do this with a disposable piping bag with the tip snipped away (same one that I used to pipe the dam). Lightly spread/smooth the top of the filling with an offset spatula.
• Top with the second cake layer and repeat. Then, top with the third cake layer. Fill in any gaps between the cake layers with additional frosting, then frost the cake.
• Press coconut all over the sides and top of the cake. We had some frosting leftover which we used to pipe stars around the top edge of the cake with a french tip, and garnished with small lemon wedges.

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