While Santa Claus is busy with his festive duties, Tom Cruise has his own holiday tradition to attend to—curating his list of who gets his famous holiday cake.

Each year, Cruise sends out a special treat to a select group of celebrities. The question on everyone’s mind is, who will be fortunate enough to be on this year’s list?

The recipients are gifted with $130 white chocolate coconut Bundt cakes, meticulously wrapped in designer paper and accompanied by an ornament and a note signed by ‘Santa’ himself.

In past years, the message has simply expressed Cruise’s warmest wishes for the holiday season.

The Daily Mail has uncovered details about this cherished tradition, which is facilitated by Doan’s Bakery, a family-owned business in Woodland Hills, California. Cruise has been a loyal customer since 2008, after Diane Keaton introduced their cakes to his then-wife, Katie Holmes.

It all starts when Cruise’s production team, Cruise/Wagner Productions, draws up the list of recipients.

Every year, Tom Cruise sends out $130 white chocolate coconut Bundt cakes by mail which come wrapped in designer paper with an ornament and a personalized note

Glen Powell, Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick co-star, 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’

Powell shared a snap of the holiday gift on Instagram 

The names, according to bakery owner Eric Doan, 57, are ‘pretty much the same’ each year, amounting to ‘a couple hundreds cakes… a couple weeks ahead [of Christmas].’

‘I box them specifically in a gift box for them, and then they [Cruise’s company] dress them up,’ Doan said.

‘He does the large size and then a medium size, and then he does some smaller token ones, I think for employees, or who knows?’

Matthew Belloni, founder of Puck News, appears to have been among the first people to receive a cake this year.

Taking to X on December 2, he shared a photo of the coconut cake and captioned it: ‘News: I can confirm the annual Tom Cruise holiday gift cake has begun to arrive in offices and residences throughout Hollywood.’

Those who have received a cake in the past include Glen Powell, Tom Hanks, Renee Zellweger, Jon Hamm, Miles Teller, Dakota Fanning, Whoopi Goldberg, Cobie Smulders and Sherri Shepherd.

Spanish singer Victoria Canal excitedly shared that she was a lucky recipient last year, telling fans, ‘Let it be known: The Tom Cruise Cake is a 10 out of 10.’

But there is no predicting who will make the cut this time around, and for those who don’t, Doan said they can be hugely disappointed. 

‘I do get a lot of people who at one time received a cake because they’d worked on a movie or in some capacity [with Cruise], and then they don’t get one anymore,’ he said.

‘People come in and say, “Oh, we used to get it every year. Now we don’t because we’re not doing the [movie] anymore.”‘

Owner Eric Doan (pictured with his wife Carrie) told the Daily Mail exclusive details about the actor’s annual mission and who does and doesn’t make the list 

Rosie O’Donnell has been among the A-list talent to have received the cake in the past 

The Top Gun actor has been treating his VIP friends to the delicious cake for decades – but it doesn’t go to just anyone, and future deliveries are not guaranteed

Among those who no longer make the list is Brooke Shields. 

‘I was on the list for a while,’ the actress revealed in 2023. ‘I had a good ten-year run, and I got the coconut cake every year, which I was very happy [about]. 

‘It was from them [Cruise and Holmes] and [their daughter] Suri, so it was the three of them, and then soon it was no Suri and no Katie, and just Tom [after their 2012 divorce],’ she said. ‘Then it went from just Tom for a while, but not every holiday. And then the cake stopped.’

Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick co-star Monica Barbaro shed some light on how he chooses his names.

‘I have heard that they can expire,’ she said in 2022. ‘Because he is always working with so many new people, that I have heard that you don’t get the cake for life unless you keep working with him. I don’t know if we’re going to find out – that would break my heart.

‘That would be a really sad Christmas, the year I don’t get that cake.’ 

Doan, who has previously met Holmes but has yet to meet Cruise, recalled a time that Cruise called his mother, the late Karen Doan – who founded the bakery in 1983 – a week before she died from cancer in April 2023.

‘I would love to meet him someday. I mean, when my mom was dying with cancer a couple years ago, he actually called her, like a week before she passed. Honestly, what a mensch. It was just pretty cool,’ he said.