Faith Hill Loves Making This Retro Southern Cake

When it comes to cakes, fancy is fine, but sometimes traditional and nostalgic are even better. Personally, I like making a cake that makes its recipient the happiest. It seems country singer Faith Hill has the same mindset. When it comes to making her husband Tim McGraw’s favorite cake, she doesn’t call the bakery and order a fancy cake. She goes retro and makes him a Coca-Cola cake. 

McGraw recently spoke to "ET Canada" about his favorite foods that Hill makes for him when he lets himself indulge, and they’re all part of a Southern feast—peas, cornbread, collard greens, pork chops, fries and gravy, and Coca-Cola cake.

What Is Coca-Cola Cake?

Coca-Cola cake is a chocolate sheet cake with cola in the cake ingredients, traditionally baked in a 9x13-inch baking dish, studded inside with marshmallows, and frosted with a chocolate frosting that also includes cola. 

Last year, Hill and her daughter Gracie made the Coca-Cola cake for Ina Garten on the show “Be My Guest With Ina Garten.” She wrote on Instagram, “Walking into @inagarten’s made me feel like I was home.  It was the most magical day with Ina and Gracie.  We made Coca Cola Cake, a family favorite.  Thank you, Ina!!!!!!!  We love you even more and didn’t know that was possible.”

On the show, the mother and daughter duo shared the recipe that includes all the regular chocolate cake ingredients—flour, cocoa powder, sugar, eggs, etc.—and one cup of Coke or some other cola soda. It doesn’t make the cake taste like the soda. The soda does contribute to its richness, though, and it also contributes to the cake’s light and fluffy texture since the soda contains carbon dioxide that acts as a leavening agent. 

How Good Is Coca-Cola Cake? 

This Southern cake is easy to make, and we have several recipes for Coca-Cola cake right here on the site. It’s not more difficult than making any other basic cake and frosting cake from scratch, but in a pinch, you can also make it by combining a can of Coke with a boxed cake mix. 

Several Allrecipes’ readers have made Coca-Cola cake and have lots of positive things to say about it. “Great cake, easy to throw together, and Always a hit with people,” says one commenter. Another says, “So yummy! I think I may make a lighter icing layer next time, but otherwise no changes. This disappears so quickly at my house!?”

Several people mentioned making it as a birthday cake with comments like this one: “I make this recipe, as did my mother for my niece’s birthday every year. She is going to be 47. It is the most requested cake in my recipe box. I make it exactly according to the recipe! 2 thumbs up from this family.”

The recipe they’re raving about is almost identical to the one Hill and her daughter showed Ina Garten how to make, with one difference: the frosting contains pecans—a Southern staple in baked goods such as pecan pie and Southern sweet potato bread with pecans. Pecans or no pecans, Coca-Cola cake is a retro cake that’s a winner with a lot of folks (celebrities included), regardless of where they live.