The true mark of “making it” in Hollywood isn’t an Oscar or a billboard with your face on it — it’s getting a coconut cake from Tom Cruise. See which A-listers have bragged about receiving one of the coveted coconut cakes (and which ones have mourned falling off the gift list)
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Rosie O’Donnell and Tom Cruise have been friends for 25 years now (she famously used to gush about him on her talk show) and the actress doesn’t feel the holiday spirit until the delicious dessert shows up on her doorstep each year.
This past Christmas, O’Donnell proudly showed off the sweet delivery writing on Instagram, “My Tommy sent me a coconut cake!! I love that guy.”
02of 12Jay EllisKEVIN MAZUR/GETTY
Cruise’s cake is so renowned that his Top Gun costar, Jay Ellis flew it to Mexico last year.
“This year, my family, we all met in Mexico to spend Christmas together,” Ellis said while on The Jennifer Hudson Show. “And I was away filming a movie, and I was like, ‘Mom, can you freeze the cake and take it to Mexico?’ My whole family was like, ‘Yes, freeze the cake.'”
He continued, “Whatever it is — dry ice, ice cubes, whatever it is — we froze the cake,” he said. “We took it to Mexico, thawed it out and we had it on Christmas Day.”
(Assuming you don’t get added to Cruise’s list by Christmas, the Woodland Hills, Calif.-based bakery that makes the cake, Doan’s, will ship you one in dry ice via their Goldbelly page.)
03of 12Cary ElwesCary Elwes. BRAD BARKET/GETTY
You want a Tom Cruise coconut cake? As you wish! … is what we imagine Tom Cruise said to his Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning costar Elwes, who told PEOPLE the treat was his latest guilty pleasure. “We got sent a cake at Christmas from Tom Cruise. It was coconut from his favorite bakery,” he recalled. “Normally I don’t eat cake, but when it comes from Tom, it’s mission impossible not to.”
04of 12Tom HanksTom Hanks and Rita Wilson. ALBERTO E. RODRIGUEZ/GETTY FOR THE RECORDING ACADEMY
Also on the gift list? Tom Hanks, who described the cake as being “so great you can really only have it once a year.”
Apparently, the cake is a huge hit at his production company, Playtone, where his colleagues wait with bated breath, for it to be delivered each year.
“They start eyeing: What mail has come in? Is the big box coming in? Are we getting, what has essentially been called the Tom Cruise cake?” he said while on Mythical Kitchen’s YouTube series Last Meals.
And because the cake is such a treat, the company begins to savor each slice as the days go on. “Everybody starts slicing thinner and thinner slices,” Hanks joked.
“It’s a mathematical proof that if you just keep cutting everything in half, you will never run out of Tom Cruise cake.”
05of 12Angela Bassett & Courtney B. VanceCourtney B. Vance and Angela Bassett. GILBERT FLORES/VARIETY VIA GETTY IMAGES
During an appearance on The Late Late Show with James Corden, Cruise revealed Angela Bassett and husband Courtney B. Vance are also recipients of the famous cake.
“I like to send cakes to people and stuff like that,” Cruise stated. “I sent one to you and Courtney-”
“Yeah, but only I ate it,” the Black Panther actress gleefully joked about her refusal to share.
06of 12Elle & Dakota FanningTom Cruise and Elle Fanning. LESTER COHEN/WIREIMAGE
After getting a special shout out from the Mission Impossible actor during last year’s Cannes Film Festival, Elle Fanning revealed Cruise has shown her and sister Dakota so much love over the years.
Cruise and Dakota starred in War of the Worlds together back in 2005.
Elle told PEOPLE that Cruise “made it a point to kind of stay in [Dakota’s] life … which was so kind.”
She continued, “And he sends her a birthday gift every single year still. We get the coconut cake that he sends, which I know Kirsten Dunst said she gets one, as well, from working with him in Interview with the Vampire.”
07of 12Kirsten DunstAMY SUSSMAN/WIREIMAGE
As Elle mentioned, Dunst has been on the list of recipients since working with Cruise in 1994.
“He gives me a cake every Christmas,” Dunst told Graham Norton during a 2016 appearance on his show. “We call it the Cruise cake at my house. It’s the best coconut cake I’ve ever had in my life.”
08of 12Jon HammJon Hamm. MICHAEL KOVAC/GETTY IMAGES FOR PARAMOUNT WORLDWIDE
Though Jon Hamm starred in Top Gun: Maverick with Cruise, he was a receiver of the coconut bundt cake long before then.
“I’m on the list. I’m very proud to be on the list,” Hamm told Dish Nation. “I was on the list pre-Maverick so I’m very happy. I predate the movie, so somehow I got on that list.”
09of 12Miles TellerTom Cruise and Miles Teller. KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES
Much like the team at Tom Hanks’ production company, Miles Teller couldn’t fathom the thought of finishing the cake in its entirety when he got it for his birthday.
“The coconut cake is very good,” he admitted to Dish Nation during the Hollywood premiere of the Top Gun last year.
“I have one in my fridge right now he sent for my birthday in February. So what month are we in? May? I still have it, so that that let’s you know how good it is.”