This Louisiana crunch cake recipe makes good manners negotiable. It's an easy cake-mix recipe that's unapologetically old-school, ridiculously moist, and exactly the sort of cake that you dive into face first.
Table of Contents
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🥰 Is this Louisiana crunch cake recipe for you?
- You love coconut. There's coconut in the cake, coconut on the cake, and absolutely no apology forthcoming.
- You remember the Entenmann's version from the 1980s. It was good. This is better.
- You want homemade flavor without scratch-cake drama. A yellow cake mix gets us to dessert faster. I see no reason to alert the authorities.
- You believe cake and coffee are a legitimate pairing. Breakfast, brunch, afternoon snack... clocks are mostly decorative anyway.
- You like texture with your cake. Tender, moist crumb underneath; buttery crunch, toasted coconut, and sweet vanilla glaze up top.
- You need something easy that looks impressive. This one arrives looking considerably more high-maintenance than it actually is.
🧾 Ingredients
This Louisiana crunch cake keeps the ingredient list gloriously uncomplicated, like summer vacation when you were ten.
- Yellow cake mix - I used a 15.25-ounce box. We are not milling wheat by candlelight to prove anything to anyone.
- Butter - Adds richness and keeps that golden crumb firmly on the decadent side of respectable.
- Eggs - Give the cake structure, because somebody around here has to maintain order.
- Vanilla - Use the real stuff. This cake has standards, even if we started with a box.
- Sugar - Sprinkled into the prepared pan to help create that sweet, slightly crunchy crust that gives Louisiana crunch cake its name.
- Powdered sugar - The backbone of the glaze and the reason we forgive powdered sugar for getting on absolutely everything within a six-foot radius.
- Coconut - Sweetened shredded coconut adds chewy, toasty little bits of chaos to the crust.
- Buttermilk - Adds moisture, tenderness, and a subtle tang that makes a boxed mix taste considerably more ambitious.
- Cream - Thins the glaze until it's glossy, pourable, and ready to drip dramatically down the sides of the cake.
📖 Recipe
Louisiana Crunch Cake Recipe
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Cake
- 4 large eggs
- ½ cup butter, melted
- 1-½ teaspoons vanilla
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 15.25 ounces yellow cake mix
- 2 tablespoons Angel Flake coconut, or favorite sweetened coconut
Crunch coating
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tablespoons Angel Flake coconut, lightly toasted
Glaze
- 1½ cups powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoons heavy whipping cream, divided, you may need a little more or less.
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Generously butter a 10 to 12-cup tube pan, making sure to get into every nook and cranny.
- In a small bowl, stir together the sugar and coconut for the crunch coating.
- Sprinkle the mixture into the buttered pan, tilting and tapping until the bottom and sides are evenly coated. Shake out any excess.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, melted butter, and buttermilk until smooth.
- Add the cake mix and coconut.
- Mix just until combined. Don't overmix.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top.
- Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few moist crumbs. An instant read thermometer will show 205℉.
- Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 to 15 minutes only.
- Carefully run a thin knife around the edges if needed, then invert onto a cake stand or serving plate.
Glaze
- While the cake cools, make the glaze.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, melted butter, vanilla, and 3 tablespoons heavy cream until smooth.
- Add the remaining tablespoon of cream if needed to reach a thick but pourable consistency.
- Spoon or drizzle the glaze over the cooled cake, letting it run down the sides.
- Garnish with more toasted coconut if desired.
To Toast the Coconut
- Spread the coconut in a dry cast iron skillet over medium-low heat or on a baking sheet in a 325°F oven.
- Stir frequently, watch carefully, and toast just until lightly golden, about 3 to 5 minutes.
- Let cool.
Notes
- Start with room-temperature ingredients. Eggs and buttermilk blend into the batter more evenly when they aren't refrigerator-cold.
- Butter the pan generously before adding the sugar and coconut.
- Be sure not to let the cake cool in the pan for more than 10-15 minutes.
Nutrition Facts
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
This recipe has been tested several times. If you choose to use other ingredients, or change the technique in some way, the results may not be the same.
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🔪 How to make a Louisiana crunch cake
This is the easy part, but there are a couple of places where a perfectly innocent cake can develop an attitude. Follow the steps below, pay particular attention to preparing the pan, and don't ignore the cooling time unless you enjoy reconstructing cake like an edible archaeological dig.
- Mix cake ingredients.
- Stir together the sugar and coconut for the crunch coating and sprinkle it in the prepared pan covering all surfaces.
- Pour the batter in the pan and bake.
- Cool cake in pan for 10 minutes, remove, and glaze generously.
😱 What can go wrong (and how to fix it)
🥥 The cake sticks to the pan. Louisiana crunch cake has a sugary coconut crust, which is delicious right up until it decides the Bundt pan is its permanent residence. Grease every nook and cranny generously, then coat with the sugar and coconut as directed.
🥥 The outside is getting dark but the center isn't done. Loosely tent the cake with foil and keep baking. Bundt cakes are thick little creatures, and the center may need more time after the outside has had quite enough excitement.
🥥 The cake is dry. You probably baked it too long. Start checking a few minutes early and pull it when a tester comes out with a few moist crumbs. It should read about 205F. We're baking cake, not creating structural lumber.
🥥 Half the cake stayed behind when I turned it out. You may have flipped it too soon or let it cool completely in the pan. Give it the cooling time specified in the recipe, then gently loosen the edges before turning it out. This is a negotiation, not a home invasion. Cut any jagged edges, glaze the half cake that came out, and serve with confidence. Bonus, you can pick at the crumbly part later.
🥥 The glaze disappeared into the cake. The cake was still warm. Let it cool completely before glazing or that lovely white icing will melt straight into the crumb and vanish like it entered witness protection.
🥥 My glaze is too thick or too thin. Glaze has the emotional stability of a Victorian heiress. Add cream a teaspoon at a time if it's too thick; add powdered sugar a tablespoon at a time if it's too thin
🍽 More bundt cakes
These are the cakes you take to potlucks, bake sales, and family get-togethers because they are easy and they are always delicious!
Listen. If pound cake and a glazed doughnut had a glamorous Southern cousin who smells expensive this would be it. Louisiana crunch cake is the kind of dessert your grandma brought to church potlucks in a covered carrier she refused to let anybody wash afterward because she didn't want it lost.
And before somebody asks, yes, you can absolutely eat this for breakfast with coffee. We are grown humans. The government can't stop us and I won't tell mom if you don't.
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