Tom Cruise gifts $126 Christmas cake to A-list actress (but it's NOT Brooke Shields who got CUT from his curious annual list)

Tom Cruise's Christmas Bundt cake is a coveted gift amongst Hollywood stars.

The Mission: Impossible actor, 62, bestows the $126 coconut dessert to a number of lucky recipients on his holiday gift list each year.

And this December, Mindy Kaling, 45, made the cut, with the actress proudly sharing a photo of the indulgent sweet treat.

The Sex Lives of College Girls creator posted a snap of the scrumptious cake on her Instagram Stories on Thursday.

'IYKYK,' she simply wrote on the image, which means, 'If You Know, You Know.' The Story was set to the song 'Danger Zone' by Kenny Loggins, one of the hit singles from the soundtrack to Top Gun, which famously stars Cruise.

Each year, Cruise sends the pricey sweet delight to a list of Hollywood celebrities who he has worked with. Some stars have been on the list for decades, while others come and go. 

Another one of Tom's lucky recipients this year was his Top Gun: Maverick co-star Glen Powell, who shared a snap of the cake on his Instagram earlier this month. 

Powell has raved about the cake in the past, telling Jennifer Hudson on her talk show, 'It is the most delicious cake you've ever had.'

In fact, the actor and his friends enjoy the dessert so much he throws an annual party where he treats them to a bite of the cake. 

'My friends who have tried it, they love it so much that they hit me up right around December 1. "Hey, has it arrived yet?" So now I have a party at my house where I'll have the Cruise cake. It's my "Cruise Cake Party." And I'll invite people over to try a bite or two ... [they] can't get greedy. I really have to limit people. I can't let them come back for seconds.'

Not all stars remain so lucky. 

For instance, last year Brooke Shields revealed that the past holiday season was the first time she hadn't received one of his famously delicious cakes in 10 years.

'I was on the list for a while - I had a good 10-year run, and I got the coconut cake every year,' the actress told People.

'It was from them and Suri, so it was the three of them, and then soon it was no Suri and no Katie and just Tom,' Shields said.

'Then it went from just Tom for a while, but not every holiday. And then the cake stopped.'

She begged: 'I want to get back on that cake list. It's the best cake. Tom, I need to be back on the cake list.'

As per Goldbelly, the cake consists of 'a ring of moist, luxurious coconut Bundt cake,' 'chunks of sweet white chocolate,' a layer of cream cheese frosting, and toasted coconut flakes on top.

Karen and Eric Doan - the mother-and-son duo who own the bakery that makes the cake - were equally grateful for Cruise's generous annual contributions.

'This year has been a really rough ride,' Eric told Yahoo back in December 2020.

'In March and April, we wondered if we were even going to be able to stay open.'

'Now, I'm spun like a top,' he said of the holiday season, adding that Cruise's order is 'honestly is one of the things that kept us alive' during the pandemic.

'There were years they kept us in business,' he added.

While it has been said that Cruise has never tried the cake himself, Karen can confirm that he has tried it at least once.

Diane Keaton introduced Cruise to the cake. Karen told ET that Keaton and Katie Holmes had a contest on who knew of the best cake.

They decided Cruise would be the judge and each sent him a cake. He picked Keaton's, which was the coconut Bundt cake from Doan Bakery.

Even though the correspondent reminded her that Cruise famously 'doesn't have sugar,' she has objected, stating: 'He eats it. He eats it.'

Not all of Cruise's cake recipients are Hollywood stars; he also sends cakes to producers, journalists, and executives.

Cruise allegedly arranged for 300 Christmas cakes to be shipped over from LA to the UK on his private jet as a gift for Mission: Impossible 7 crew members.

A source told The Sun: 'Tom wanted to give the team on Mission: Impossible a treat for Christmas and decided that only cakes from his favorite bakery in LA would do.'

Famous or not, everyone seems to love his cakes, with Kirsten Dunst calling it 'the best coconut cake I've ever had in my life,' while James Corden has called it 'unbelievable.'

Here are all the celebrities who have spoken out about having the honor of making Cruise's cake list.

Kirsten Dunst was the first one to reveal Cruise's annual cake gifting tradition

Dunst was the first celebrity to speak out about the cakes - revealing Cruise's annual tradition to the world.

In a 2015 interview with Stylist magazine, she said: '[Tom] sends me a cake every Christmas.

'It's so good - a coconut cake with white chocolate chips. It gets eaten within a day in my house.'

She also appeared on The Graham Norton Show in 2016 to dish on what she dubbed 'the Cruise cake.'

'He gives me this cake every Christmas,' she explained.

'We call it the Cruise cake. It's just this coconut cake. It's the best coconut cake I've ever had in my life.'

She first met Cruise during a screen test for their 1994 film Interview With A Vampire. In fact, she credits him for helping her land the role.

'I auditioned many, many times for this role. This was also a huge deal for me. This was my breakout role,' Dunst said during Netflix's Playback.

'And then I had another screen test after that with Tom Cruise, and I remember I was the tallest of all the young girls.

'He had to pick each one of us up and carry us around just to see how we looked against Tom and who looked the most childlike.

'I remember Tom whispering to me, "Tuck your legs under," so I'd look as tiny as possible 'cause I was the tallest girl.'

'So I knew he was kind of like rooting for me. We were both from New Jersey, and I think, he was like, "Let this Jersey girl have it,"' shared Dunst.

Tom Hanks has said that the coconut Bundt cake would be part of his last meal 

Tom Hanks has raved about what a treat it is to receive Cruise's annual Christmas gift.

In fact, Hanks claimed he would include it in his last meal if he was on death row.

While on the Mythical Kitchen series Last Meal, he claimed he'd end with the Bundt cake as dessert while also enjoying challah bread French toast, an In-N-Out Double-Double, Greek salad with avocado, calamari and the Taste Of History platter from El Cholo restaurant with a diet Dr. Pepper.

Hanks lit up when Cruise's cake was brought out during the interview.

'Look at it! Look at it. Isn't it gorgeous?' he exclaimed.

'This cake is so great, you can really only have it once a year, which works out perfectly because I don't order it. It arrives as a gift at Christmas.'

Later on, Hanks boasted that he was part of the annual list and explained how he shares the gift with his television company, Playtone.

'This is a Christmas gift that we get every year from Tom Cruise,' Hanks stated.

'Now what's interesting is the folks down at the office, the Playtone world headquarters, starting about Thanksgiving they start eyeing what mail has come in today.

'"Are we getting what has essentially been called the Tom Cruise cake?" Because this is off-the-scale fantastic.

'Everybody starts slicing thinner and thinner slices. It's a mathematical proof that if you just keep cutting everything in half, you will never run out of Tom Cruise cake.'

Hanks and Cruise worked on America: A Tribute To Heroes together so they may have gotten closer, but it's likely the Forrest Gump actor got on the list because of his sheer stardom.

Jon Hamm doesn't know how he ended up on Cruise's cake list before Top Gun: Maverick

Jon Hamm has been getting the renowned Cruise cakes for some time now.

Hamm spoke of the cake during a 2022 interview with THR calling it 'the best cake I've ever had in my life' while adding that he likes to 'savor' it for as long as possible.

When asked if he was on the list, he said, 'Yes, I am. It's a very anticipated cake, that's for sure.

'I don't know when that particular piece of information got out, but I had been on it even before I worked on this film.'

He continued: 'I don't know how, but I remember getting it at one point and thinking, "This might be the best cake I've ever had in my life." And it still delivers, even over the pandemic.

'It does keep, I'll say that. It keeps for a while, and like a lot of cakes, it's good a little stale, too. So we savor it. We do not descend upon it.'

Hamm worked with Cruise on Top Gun: Maverick and has raved about the warm welcome he received from The Mummy star.

'I'll never forget my first day on set. There's Tom Cruise, and he says, "Hey," comes up, gives me a big hug and says, "It's so good to have you here,"' Hamm shared during an interview with TODAY.

'It's a rare thing to be in the presence of a guy like that,' he said of Cruise.

However, he had actually had met Cruise 10 years prior to Top Gun: Maverick at Jimmy Kimmel's house.

Hamm said Kimmel was known for throwing all-day football viewing parties with big groups of people.

'They'd have a keg and he'd make pizzas,' he said on the Howard Stern Show.

'It was LA so it's sunny and games start at 10 in the morning.'

At first, when he had heard that Cruise was at the party, Hamm thought he was being pranked in classic Kimmel fashion.

However, he realized that 'it's not a Tom Cruise impersonator, it is Tom Cruise — with his mom.'

On top of it, Cruise turned out to be a big fan of Hamm's work in Mad Men, which ran from 2007 to 2015.

'He was like — in a very Tom Cruise way, very direct and intense — "I love that show. I love that show,"' he recalled.

'"Thanks man." Holy cow. That was a good day.'

Angela Bassett ate up her cake so quickly that her husband Courtney B. Vance didn't get a slice 

Angela Bassett loved Cruise's cake so much that she didn't leave enough for her husband, Courtney B. Vance, to get a slice.

She discussed the delicacy in Cruise's presence when they appeared together on James Corden's The Late Late Show.

Cruise elaborated on his decision not to eat the cake himself while sharing that he sent it to everyone on the set of Mission Impossible: Fallout.

'I love sugar, but I can't eat it when I'm training. So, I send it to everyone. I sent it to the stunt team,' Cruise told his co-star and Corden in 2018.

Bassett starred in the film and therefore also got her hands on the Bundt cake. When Cruise shared that he sent one to her and her husband, she joked: 'But only I ate it.'

She also discussed the TCCC - Tom Cruise Coconut Cake - on The Kelly Clarkson Show, sharing she ordered a deluxe version of her own.

'It's so good that at our 25th anniversary, we had the cake. We had a three-tiered TCCC cake and I ate the third tier by myself,' Bassett admitted.

It seems Bassett enjoyed working with Cruise on Mission Impossible: Fallout almost as much as the cake.

'As soon as you show up to set he says [your name] and he would light up,' she shared on Kelly and Ryan.

'He lights up for you and gives you the warmest embrace. He makes sure you're taken care of with everything you need.'

James Corden and his staff on The Late Late Show receive cakes that Cruise himself has never tried 

Corden has spoken out about Cruise's cakes a number of times. In fact, he was the one who revealed that the Top Gun actor had never tried the cake.

While appearing on Heart Breakfast, he shared that he is in fact on the list as well as his The Late Late Show coworkers.

'It's unbelievable, I would say almost everybody he meets who works on The Late Late Show gets one of these cakes,' the TV host said.

'It's like our head writers, Ian and Lauren, you know different people that he's met, he's just so gracious and generous.'

However, he then claimed that Tom had never tried his iconic cake, adding: 'But here's the most amazing thing. He's never tried it!'

To which a shocked Jason King - one of the show's hosts - said: 'No!', but James insisted: 'On my life!'

Corden also discussed receiving the cake with Cruise himself when he appeared on The Late Late Show with Bassett.

When Cruise had mentioned that he didn't eat sugar while training, Corden joked that he 'make[s] everyone around you fat' with his cakes.

'I woke up to someone knocking on my door,' he said of the moment he received his first TCCC.

'It was like 8am and they presented me with an incredible chocolate cake and it was from Tom Cruise saying: "Good luck at the Grammys."

'I was like: "This is how you look so good. You make everyone around you fat!"'

While Cruise and Corden have never worked on a film together, they've become close friends over the years and the host has had him on his late-night show on several occasions.

The two even sky dived together on one episode in 2018.

Henry Cavill almost didn't eat the cake but he's certainly glad he did 

As Cavill climbs the ranks of Hollywood, he has also found a spot on Cruise's Christmas cake list.

He told Access Hollywood he was initially afraid to try the cake but once he did, he 'loved it.'

'I received this cake at Christmas time saying, "Dear Henry, Happy Christmas, from Tom Cruise," which is an insane little thing to read,' he said.

'So I get the cake and I think it's a sort of super healthy coconut — the kind of thing that doesn't taste amazing. Nothing treat-like, and so I left it. I just left it in the fridge,' he went on.

But when the Man Of Steel star finally tried it, it was 'the most decadent, the most amazing, the most surprising cake, to receive from someone like Tom Cruise. I loved it. Smashed it.'

Cavill has also raved about working with Cruise on Mission Impossible: Fallout. He called filming the helicopter sequence the most difficult and 'physically the most enduring' scene he has done in his career.

However, he 'absolutely loved the sequence, and it was so worth it.'

Cruise has also praised Cavill's performance in the film, specifically the 'arm reload' sequence which he improvised himself.

'We looked at that over and over in rushes in the editing room. We're going like, "How did you do that Henry?"' he said on BBC Radio 1.

Cruise sends Prince William and Kate Middleton a cake after claiming he 'loves the royals' 

Let them eat cake! Cruise has reportedly even sent his famous dessert to royals Prince William and Kate Middleton.

A source told The U.S. Sun that the Prince and Princess of Wales joined Cruise's list this past holiday season.

In fact, the source used the cake as evidence of how much 'star power' the royal couple had.

'This is pretty much the Who's Who of who matters in global entertainment and showbiz,' the source explained.

They added: 'Adding the royals to the list just shows how their star power travels.'

Cruise met Prince William and Princess Kate during a private screening of his film Top Gun: Maverick.

Upon meeting him, Cruise revealed that he had 'a lot in common' with Prince William.

'We have a lot in common. We both love England and we're both aviators, we both love flying,' he told MyLondon.

According to Vanity Fair, William trained in the armed forces as a helicopter pilot, and Cruise doesn't just play a pilot but did actually get his license in 1994.

Cruise also reportedly 'loves the royals,' as per The Telegraph. 

Jimmy Fallon hopes he continues to make the cut each year 

Corden isn't the only late-night show host to receive Cruise's decadent cake.

During an interview on his show with Cobie Smulders in 2019, Jimmy Fallon revealed that he too got the cake and he hoped to remain on the list.

'Tom Cruise will send you a cake during the holidays,' he explained.

'It's Tom Cruise,' he continued. 'You get a cake, you get anything from Tom Cruise, you eat, you put in the freezer and you save it for a year.'

Added the talk show host: 'I hope I get the cake this year.'

While Cruise hasn't starred in any projects with Fallon, that doesn't mean he hasn't performed with him before.

During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, they faced off against each other in a lip sync battle.

Cobie Smulders coined his annual gift as 'Tom Cruise deliciousness'

During her interview with Fallon, Smulders revealed that she is also on the list.

She too raved about the 'unbelievable' cake claiming that 'it's Tom Cruise deliciousness.'

'It's a white chocolate, coconut cake and it's unbelievable,' she told the talk show host.

The How I Met Your Mother actress continued: 'I receive it, and hopefully, maybe if I talk about it on television I will for sure receive it. But it's so good.

'I leave it in my freezer and it lasts until, like, March. Like, I just slowly chip away at this thing.

'It's so good. I don't know why. I'm not even a big sweets person, but it's so good.'

She added: 'It's Tom Cruise deliciousness.'

Smulders bonded with the action movie star when she worked on his 2016 film Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.

She booked the role just after filming for How I Met Your Mother wrapped.

'I knew I wanted to focus on films, because I didn't want to be contractually held to something for many years,' she told ET of her goals after the long-running series.

'I wanted to keep bouncing around and try new characters and really just challenge myself. But I never thought of, like, "My goal is an action movie with Tom Cruise."'

Just like the cake, she found working with Cruise to be a 'real blessing.'

She told the outlet: 'It was a real blessing that the first action movie where I had a lot of stunts and I was very physical was a Tom Cruise action movie. He's such a pro and he's so smart.'

Rosie O'Donnell has shown off her cakes on Instagram for the past three years 

Rosie O'Donnell has not only talked about receiving Cruise's cakes but has also uploaded proof to social media.

She first showed off her gift from 'Tommy' in December 2020 on Instagram. She displayed a cream-colored present box wrapped in a bow and accessorized with a jewel-studded reindeer.

The gift tag was addressed to 'Rosie O'Donnell' and read: 'Warmest wishes to you this Holiday Season.'

'Christmas is here when Tommy’s gift shows up,' Rosie captioned the image on Instagram.

The following year, in 2021, she posted another picture of the signature gift box.

She wrote: 'Christmas cake has arrived - thank u tommy (sic).'

In 2022, she gave Instagram users as special look at the cake itself. She popped open the box and showed off the round coconut-flaked cake.

'My tommy sent me a coconut cake !! i love that guy (sic),' she captioned the post.

O'Donnell shared that she had been friends with Cruise for 25 years and why she would 'always love' him during an interview on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show.

'He is the only person who never misses my birthday. In knowing him for 25 years now, he has never missed my birthday or an event in my life,' O'Donnell said.

'I know people think in Hollywood and celebrity [that] everybody knows each other, but I know him in the way that I did in that time 25 years ago.

'But every year, I think what a classy guy he is that he never has forgotten my birthday.

'A lot of people say to me it's just his secretary, but I don't believe that. I think he knows in early March, "Oh, it's Rosie's birthday coming up," and he sends me something. Every single year for 25 years.'

'I love Tom Cruise and I will always love Tom Cruise,' she reiterated, adding: 'I do not understand, you know, the Scientology religion.'

Renee Zellweger enjoys being on the cake list almost as much as she enjoyed working with Cruise 

Renee Zellweger is one of the A-list celebrities who receives Cruise's sweet treats every holiday season.

When Zellweger went on The Graham Norton Show, he asked her if she was still 'on the cake list.'

She also shared that he was on the cake list, which he had just found out about earlier that day. Apparently, he never got to try the cake or even knew about it because his staff would devour it.

'I didn't know we were on the Tom Cruise cake list until today,' he told Zellweger.

'I've never seen the bloody cake. Someone in the office went, "It's the nicest cake I've ever had!"'

'It is a nice cake,' the actress chimed in.

Zellweger first met Cruise when she filmed Jerry Maguire with him in 1996.

The film was her big break and it was her first big Hollywood film, but she said Cruise still met her with welcoming arms.

'You walk in the room, and the whole superstar thing of this person disappears. And the truth of who he is is right there,' Zellweger said on Yahoo!'s Role Recall.

'He shakes your hand, looks you in the eye, [says] "Happy to meet you," and he is. And he's curious about you and wants to get to know you. And it's very easy to like him.'

She raved about how 'amazing' it was to not only meet him, but to discover that he was 'warm and kind.'

'It was amazing to meet someone that I'd admired for so long, who I found to be so genuine and warm and kind,' she told Variety.

'And there we were, going to go and do one of my favorite things, create a scene. It was a pretty special day.'

Cruise, she continued, is 'so thoughtful and committed.'

'He doesn't take any of it for granted. He's very professional and gets a lot of joy out of the process. I respect that so much, and that is what I took away from it. He loves making movies — he loves it,' she said.

Like O'Donnell, Zellweger added that 'he never forgets my birthday.'

Cruise also thinks highly of his Jerry Maguire co-star.

'I'll never forget meeting Renee. She came in and there was just magic. You just saw this raw talent,' he told ET.

Miles Teller received a cake from the costar that he feels can 'never be matched' 

Miles Teller is a recent addition to Cruise's cake list after starring as Lt. Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw in Top Gun: Maverick.

During the movie's red carpet premiere, Cruise's famous cake got brought up and Teller had nothing but positive things to say about it.

He gushed, 'The coconut cake is very good. I have one in my fridge right now.'

Naturally, Teller met Cruise while working on the hit sequel.

Teller has plenty of respect for the A-list actor and claimed that he 'will never be matched.'

'He spends so much time before you ever show up, I mean years and years,' he said on Dan Fogler's 4D Xperience podcast.

He continued: 'It's just wonderful to be a part of something like that because he's doing so much heavy lifting and he's literally just nonstop and his attention to detail is just ridiculous. It will never be matched.'

He also had a bonding moment with Cruise after he got sick while flying for filming and realized it was caused from having jet fuel in his blood.

'I was like, "Well, Tom, it turns out I have jet fuel in my blood,"' he shared

'And without even skipping a beat Tom goes "Yeah, I was born with it, kid." So that was a very Tom moment for me.'

It seems Teller enjoyed working with Cruise so much that he has been in conversation with him about a Top Gun 3.

'That would be great, but that's all up to TC,' he told ET of Tom Cruise and the possibility of another sequel.

'It's all up to Tom. I've been having some conversations with him about it. We'll see.'

Jay Ellis had his cake frozen and shipped to Mexico 

Jay Ellis has also joined the all-important Tom Cruise cake list after playing Lt. Reuben 'Payback' Fitch in Top Gun: Maverick.

In fact, Ellis loves the cake so much that he had it flown to Mexico when his family had planned to spend their holidays.

'The cake is coveted in this town,' Ellis said on The Jennifer Hudson Show.

'It's literally like getting a trophy.

'We get the cake every year. It's always a surprise when you get it, because you're so excited to get it — and you wanna make sure you're still on the gift list.

'My family, we all met in Mexico to spend Christmas together.

'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."

'Whatever it is — dry ice, ice cubes, whatever it is — we froze the cake. We took it Mexico, thawed it out, and we had it on Christmas Day.'

Ellis really looked up to Cruise as they were filming Top Gun: Maverick together - even calling the Jerry Maguire star his 'mentor.'

'He's really kind. He's very gracious with his time, which I think is one of the most amazing things,' he told Us Weekly.

'If you text him, he's like, "I'm gonna call you." Like, he will call you and speak to you for 30 [to] 50 minutes about a text and go through all these different things and scenarios.

'He's just amazing [as] a mentor, a friend, a filmmaker, an acting coach, all of the above.

'To know that I got the opportunity to spend 10 months working with him on a movie and another however many months putting it out in the world and going on this press tour.

'It's crazy. It's absolutely bonkers,' he enthused.

Barbara Walters and her The View cohosts tasted the cake during the show 

Tom Cruise treated Barbara Walters and the ladies of The View to his holiday cake in 2013.

In fact, Walters was so excited to show it off that she and her cohosts ate it during the show.

'This is from Tom Cruise,' the 84-year-old host gushed as she began to slide a wide cream-colored bow off a pretty box.

'And everyone here got one, not just me,' she added. 'Isn't that nice?'

Her cohosts, at the time, included Jenny McCarthy, Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd. Hilaria Baldwin guest hosted.

'Let's get a fork,' Sherri suggested as she took a look at the confection.

Based on their on-camera reactions, the ladies seemed to thoroughly enjoy the cake.

In addition to his appearances on The View in 2005 and 2009, she had a one-on-one interview with him in 1992.