Chocolate Biscuit Cake image
Credit: Aaron Kirk; Prop Styling: Kashara Johnson; Food Styling: Pam Lolley
Lots of layers, decadenticing, and fabulous fillings bring the drama with these impressive cakes. Looking to make a statement at your next party orevent? Look no further, these cakes have arrived.
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Confetti Flower Cake
Confetti Flower Cake image
Credit: Whitney Ott; Food Styling: Mary-Claire Britton; Prop Styling: Audrey Davis
Confetti Flower Cake Recipe
It may be hard to believe that this stunning layer cake could taste as delightful as it looks, but trust us on this one… it’s well worth cutting into. We create an all-natural “fun-fetti” look for this Confetti Flower Cake with edible flower petals flecked throughout the moist and delicate vanilla layers. Covered in a light, fluffy strawberry frosting (and a few more garnishing edible flowers for good measure), this wow-worthy confetti cake is the perfect centerpiece for your next special occasion—be it a birthday party or a wedding shower.
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Best Carrot Cake
Best Carrot Cake
Credit: Tina Cornett; Styling: Leslie Byars Simpson
Best Carrot Cake Recipe
Truly our best-ever carrot cake recipe, make this classic favorite for a crowd and you might not have any leftovers to bring home.
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Pistachio Raspberry Cake
Pistachio Raspberry Cake
Credit: Thomas J Story
Pistachio Raspberry Cake Recipe
This rich and decadent cake is covered with crushed pistachios which offer a wealth of texture and a pop of color and flavor.
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Lemon and Vanilla Angel Food Cake
Lemon and Vanilla Angel Food Cake
Credit: Thomas J. Story
Lemon and Vanilla Angel Food Cake Recipe
This delicate, cloudlike cake from Kristen Murray, pastry chef and owner of Maurice restaurant in Portland, is an adaptation of one from her great-aunt Crys, using rice flour for regular flour so the cake is gluten-free, with a little crunch. For best results, beat egg whites to very soft peaks so they (and the cake) can expand further in the oven.
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Strawberry Dream Cake
Strawberry Dream Cake
Credit: Greg Dupree Styling: Ginny Branch
Strawberry Dream Cake Recipe
This cake almost looks too amazing to be real! With this cake, anyone can be a champion baker. Strawberries offer an impressive pop of color and flavor to this decadent cake that would be perfect for a backyard party.
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Coconut Cream Cake
Fluffy Coconut Frosting
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Buffy Hargett Miller
Coconut Cream Cake Recipe
This towering beauty combines delicate fluffy icing with bold coconut flavor. Look for packaged coconut shavings in your grocer's natural foods section.
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The Lane Cake
The Lane Cake
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Heather Chadduck Hillegas
The Lane Cake Recipe
More than 100 years ago, Emma Rylander Lane of Clayton, Alabama enteredthe annual baking competeition at the county fair in Columbus, Georgia. She took first prize. The cake came to be known as The Lane Cake, and gained literary fame in 1960 when it wasfeatured in Harper Lee'sTo Kill a Mockingbird. In March 1966, Southern Living featured the cake in its second issue. Here, it stands with a peachy makeover and an unforgettable meringue frosting.
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The Red Velvet Cake
The Red Velvet Cake
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Heather Chadduck Hillegas
The Red Velvet Cake Recipe
The origin ofred velvet cakes came about fromthe result of baking soda interacting with natural cocoaand other acids in the batter. Through the years, the red velvet craze has only continued, fueled in part by the red velvet cakes that have graced the Southern Living Christmas cover three times.
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Butter's Vanilla Cake
Lemon Vanilla Cake
Credit: Thomas J Story
Butter's Vanilla Cake Recipe
This decadent layer cake is covered with a rich buttercream frosting.
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Hummingbird Cake
Hummingbird Cake
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Karin Olsen
Hummingbird Cake Recipe
Thanks to Mrs. L.H. Wiggins of Greensboro, North Carolina, this pineapple-banana spice cake with cream cheese frosting became one of our most requested recipes. We still stand by Mrs. Wiggins' original, indulgent creation.
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Tiramisu Cake
Tiramisu Cake image
Credit: Time Inc. Video Studios
Tiramisu Cake Recipe
Everything you love about classic Italian tiramisu, layered into an impressive cake.
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Butternut Squash Spice Cake
Butternut Squash Spice Cake
Credit: Iain Bagwell; Styling: Emma Star Jensen
Butternut Squash Spice Cake Recipe
Watch out, carrot cake. An intriguing mix of spices, plus coconut sugar for subtle sweetness, put this butternut squash cake over the top. (And did we mention the bourbon?)
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The Ultimate Carrot Cake
The Ultimate Carrot Cake
Credit: Alison Miksch; Styling: Caroline M. Cunningham
The Ultimate Carrot Cake Recipe
This cake doesn't receive the title of "Ultimate" for nothing! This cake is stunner, and is just as beautiful as it is delicious. The layers of the cake are tender, so remove from pans carefully.
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Triple-Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake
Triple-Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake
Credit: Alison Miksch; Styling: Buffy Hargett Miller
Triple-Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake Recipe
Topped with a chocolate and buttermilk glaze, this decadent cake is truthfully a chocolate lover's dream.
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Rainbow Layer Cake
Rainbow Layer Cake
Credit: Beth Branch
Rainbow Layer Cake Recipe
We've taken the beauty of a rainbow and captured it in a cake. Don't worry, we can't stop staring either.
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Caramel Apple Cake
Caramel Apple Cake
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Heather Chadduck Hillegas
Caramel Apple Cake Recipe
This cake is topped with sauteed apple slices and drizzled in a delicious Apple Brandy-Caramel Sauce.
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Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting
Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting image
Credit: Kelsey Hansen; Food Styling: Emily Nabors Hall; Prop Styling: Audrey Davis
Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Buttercream Frosting Recipe
This vibrant pink layer cake is pure strawberry-on-strawberry goodness, with fresh strawberries going into the cake batter and frosting. One thing to note about the buttercream frosting—it is absolutely bursting with berry flavor, but is easily over-mixed. If you find you've broken your emulsion when whipping this frosting up, no worries. You can simplymix in a little more powdered sugar to restore it. That said, we love how purely strawberry-forward the flavor of this frosting is, so we'd advise being very light-handed when adding extra powdered sugar, as itwill dilute the berry flavor. In our opinion, it's better to have a slightly broken frosting that tastes like strawberries than a perfectly pristine frosting that tastes like sugar.
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Spice Cake with Coffee Toffee Crunch
Spice Cake with Coffee Toffee Crunch
Credit: Annabelle Breakey; Styling: Dan Becker
Spice Cake with Coffee Toffee Crunch Recipe
This towering spice cake, garnished with chunks of coffee-flavored toffee, makes a luscious centerpiece for the holiday dessert table.
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Better Than Sex Cake
Better Than Sex Cake
Credit: Beth Branch
Better Than Sex Cake Recipe
This ten ingredient cake features generous helpings of Heath candy bars.
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Rainbow Sprinkle Cake
Rainbow Sprinkle Cake
Credit: Thomas J Story
Rainbow Sprinkle Cake Recipe
The perfect cake for a birthday party, this sprinkle cake is festive, fun, and amazingly tasty.
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The Jam Cake
The Jam Cake
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Heather Chadduck Hillegas
The Jam Cake Recipe
The origins of jam cake lie deep in Appalachia where store-bought sugar was once scarce. Cakes were often sweetened with homemade jams, filled with wild berries and mountain fruits to deliver a rich, dense cake with a depth of flavor sugar alone couldn't deliver.
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Mama's German Chocolate Cake
mr- mama's german chocolate cake reshoot
Credit: Victor Protasio; Food Styling: Margaret Dickey; Prop Styling: Heather Chadduck
Mama's German Chocolate Cake Recipe
Bake a cake that would make mama proud. German chocolate cakes are known for being rich, indulgent cakes, so enjoy a slice with a glass of milk.
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The Coconut Chiffon Cake
The Coconut Chiffon Cake
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Heather Chadduck Hillegas
The Coconut Chiffon Cake Recipe
Coconut is the doyenne of Southern layer cakes, a masterpiece of home cookery that has crowned dining room sideboards for more than a hundred years. Purists sing the praises of simple but divine, opting for coconut water-doused cake layers and dreamy swirls of meringue. With this latest creation, we opted for a thick and rich filling.
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Smith Island Cake
Smith Island Cake
Credit: Peter Frank Edwards; Styling: Rachael Burrow, Linda Hirst
Smith Island Cake Recipe
Create a show-stopping holiday cake by icing each beautiful layer with decadent Chocolate Ganache icing.
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Perfect Chocolate Bundt Cake
Perfect Chocolate Bundt Cake image
Credit: Time Inc. Video Studio
Perfect Chocolate Bundt Cake Recipe
Intensely chocolatey and incredibly moist, this is truly the perfect chocolate bundt cake—and undoubtedly, a chocolate lover’s dream. The cake’s rich chocolate flavor is enhanced with the addition of coffee in the batter and coffee liqueur in the glaze. Be sure to coat the inside of your bundt pan with either shortening plus a thin layer of flour or baking spray (which is nonstick cooking spray that contains flour) in order to ensure that your cake comes out clean and easy.
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Blueberry-Peach Upside Down Cake
Blueberry-Peach Upside Down Cake image
Credit: Aaron Kirk; Prop Styling: Sarah Elizabeth Cleveland; Food Styling: Julia Levy
Blueberry-Peach Upside Down Cake Recipe
This stunning upside-down cake is the perfect, easy dessert to showcase your bounty of summer fruit. The cake is tender and moist, with just enough of a delightful toothy texture from the incorporation of cornmeal into the batter. You’ll want to use juicy, ripe blueberries and peaches for best results; however, you could use frozen fruit in a pinch—just be sure to thaw and dry throughly. A few more tips to ensure upside-down cake success: Finish incorporating the ingredients by hand, this will prevent over-mixing your way to a tough cake. Also, aim to arrange the fruit as tightly as you can in the cake pan; fruit shrinks as it cooks and you don’t want too much unadorned cake poking through. Finally, if you want to skip the cornmeal, simply swap it 1:1 with all-purpose flour (for a total of 1 1/3 cups).
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Corn Flour and Orange Blossom Chiffon Cake
Corn Flour and Orange Blossom Chiffon Cake
Credit: Thomas J. Story
Corn Flour and Orange Blossom Chiffon Cake Recipe
"If cornbread were transformed into a sweet, moist, fluffy golden cake, this would be it," says Medrich. She tops it here with whipped cream and crème fraîche, and curls of candied orange zest.
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Texas Sheet Cake with Fudge Icing
Texas Sheet Cake with Fudge Icing
Credit: Iain Bagwell; Styling: Kay Clark
Texas Sheet Cake with Fudge Icing Recipe
Somehow, Texas claimed the sheet cake as its own in the mid-20th century, perhaps because of the pecans, an ingredient that grows in abundance throughout the Lone Star State. The defining element is its shape--and, of course, the icing, which has to be heated and poured on the warm, just-out-of-the-oven cake. The result is a rich, chocolaty treat that's iconic in Texas.
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Red Velvet-White Chocolate Cheesecake
Red Velvet-White Chocolate Cheesecake
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Heather Chadduck Hillegas
Red Velvet-White Chocolate Cheesecake Recipe
This gorgeous, festive cake marries two favorite holiday cake flavors: red velvet and cheesecake. The cake features layers of white chocolate cheesecake alternated with red velvet cake layers, topped with white chocolate frosting and candy "leaves".
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Perfect Pumpkin Roll
mr-pumpkin-roll
Credit: Caitlin Bensel; Food Styling: Emily Nabors Hall and Kady Wohlfarth; Prop Styling: Kay Clark
Perfect Pumpkin Roll Recipe
A classic pumpkin roll is a work of art. Rich buttercream perfectly complements the earthy-sweet pumpkin in this ideal autumnal treat—add a PSL and you're set.
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Ultimate Coconut Cake
mr-ultimate-coconut-cake
Credit: Greg Dupree; Food Styling: Margaret Dickey and Elise Mayfield; Prop Styling: Kay Clarke and Laura Evans
Ultimate Coconut Cake Recipe
"Ultimate" is no exaggeration here—this cake features coconut flour, coconut oil, coconut milk, coconut cream, coconut sugar, coconut extract, and (of course) flaked coconut. Given this cake's incrediblymoist layers, intensecoconut flavor, and lighter-than-air filling, our test kitchen chefs fought over the leftovers.
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The Lemon Cheese Layer Cake
The Lemon Cheese Layer Cake
Credit: Hector Sanchez; Styling: Heather Chadduck Hillegas
The Lemon Cheese Layer Cake Recipe
Looking for bright and fresh cake? This luscious lemon cake delivers just that and much more, featuring a creamy smooth filling and a sweet lemon-orange buttercream frosting.
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Apple Bundt Cake with Apple-Cream Cheese Glaze
MR-Apple Bundt Cake with Apple-Cream Cheese Glaze Image
Credit: Darcy Lenz
Apple Bundt Cake with Apple-Cream Cheese Glaze Recipe
This incredibly moist bundt cake gains its strong apple flavor from 4 cups of shredded Granny smith apples baked into the batter, as well as a concentrated apple liquid (made by reducing apple juice and apple liqueur) that is brushed over the warm cake after baking and used to create the cake’s sweet-tart apple and cream cheese glaze. Grating the apples, as opposed to chopping them into pieces, makes for more even distribution of moisture and apple flavor throughout this dense and delightful cake. While we opted to keep the spice factor simple here (to avoid overpowering the apple) with just a teaspoon of cinnamon, feel free to mix it up and add other favorite spices—such as cloves, ginger, nutmeg, or allspice. You can also swap the vanilla bean paste for 11/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract. If you can’t find apple liqueur, simply substitute apple flavored brandy or 1/4 cup more apple juice.
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Classic Boston Cream Pie
mr-Classic Boston Cream Pie image
Credit: Kelsey Hansen; Prop Styling: Sarah Elizabeth Cleveland; Food Styling: Rishon Hanners
Classic Boston Cream Pie Recipe
If you’re looking for the best Boston Cream Pie recipe out there, consider the search complete. Despite the name, this classic dessert lands among the most divine cake constructions we can imagine: Delicate pastry cream sandwiched between two fluffy vanilla cake layers, all topped with a decadent cap of chocolate ganache. Vanilla bean paste, which we call for in this recipe, saves bakers the hassle of scraping beans from the pod, while still delivering a similarly powerful depth of vanilla flavor. Not to mention, grabbing a jar of the paste (from supermarkets like Whole Foods or on Amazon) is a far better value than purchasing vanilla pods and definitely an ingredient we’d encourage home bakers to try. That said, if you already have vanilla extract in your pantry and are ready to start baking, the extract will work just fine!
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New Classic Red Velvet Cake
New Classic Red Velvet Cake
Credit: Randy Mayor; Styling: Lindsey Lower
New Classic Red Velvet Cake Recipe
This moist red velvet cake is filled with layer upon layer of cream cheese frosting and topped with sweet meringue icing.
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Red Velvet Ice-Cream Cake
Red Velvet Ice-Cream Cake
Credit: Greg DuPree; Prop Styling: Heather Chadduck Hillegas; Food Styling: Torie Cox
Red Velvet Ice-Cream Cake Recipe
You are sure to set off the fireworks when you serve this eye-catching layer cake at the Fourth of July cookout. Don’t worry about the frosting wilting in the summer heat. We added a teaspoon of unflavored gelatin to the frosting recipe to help it stabilize, so it won’t melt down before you cut into the cake.
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Chocolate-and-Cream Layer Cake
Chocolate-and-Cream Layer Cake
Credit: Jennifer Causey
Chocolate-and-Cream Layer Cake Recipe
Save room for dessert—this is one you don’t want to miss. It certainly has its virtues: It’s made with whole-grain flour, gets topped with fresh fruit, and contains 6g of fiber per serving. But what makes this cake so spectacular, truly, is how good it tastes.
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Lemon-and-Chocolate Doberge Cake
Lemon-and-Chocolate Doberge Cake
Credit: Victor Protasio; Prop Styling: Cindy Barr; Food Styling: Torie Cox
Lemon-and-Chocolate Doberge Cake Recipe
This multi-flavored, multi-layered cake is truly a labor of love. Our Test Kitchen adapted Guas’s recipe to include store-bought lemon curd and chocolate pudding in between the layers, which taste great and save you a few steps in the kitchen.
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Classic Birthday Cake
Birthday Cake image
Credit: Aaron Kirk; Prop Stylist: Sarah Elizabeth Cleveland; Food Styling: Sarah Epperson
Classic Birthday Cake Recipe
For a festive occasion, few treats can match the celebratory spirit of a classic birthday cake—and this easy-to-follow formula is the only one you’ll ever need. Our birthday cake recipe yields two dense layers of buttery, vanilla-forward white cake wrapped in classically rich buttercream frosting. For the signature, picture perfect birthday cake look, don’t forget to garnish your frosted cake with rainbow sprinkles. You can also stir a handful of colored sprinkles right into the cake batter to create a funfetti effect.
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Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Tahini Glaze
Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Tahini Glaze
Credit: Sara Tane
Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Tahini Glaze Recipe
What better fall-inspired dessert to make than this tahini-glazedpumpkin bundt cake. A medley of fragrant, ground spices enhancethe rich sweetnessof this incredibly moist bundt cake.Topped with a toasty, perfectlybittersweettahini glaze, this easy to make and comfortingfall dessertis the perfect centerpiece for your next dinner party, Halloween gathering, or special occasion.
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Chocolate Biscuit Cake
Chocolate Biscuit Cake image
Credit: Aaron Kirk; Prop Styling: Kashara Johnson; Food Styling: Pam Lolley
Chocolate Biscuit Cake Recipe
Love chocolate? Well, this cake is good news for you. In every bite, there's a soft, buttery crunch from the cookie alongside a layer of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate. What we love most about this indulgent dessert is that it's super easy, yet looks and tastes like it was quite the project. This is a chocolate masterpiece that is sure to impress your next crowd.