Cakes

Eric Wolfinger

From deep, dark chocolate to fluffy carrot to pineapple upside-down, here are the best recipes for cakes.

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Honey Cake with Citrus Frosting 

John Kernick

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This tender, light honey cake, laced with hints of coffee and orange juice, is perfect with a cup of tea.

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Buttermilk Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze

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This is the ultimate buttermilk Bundt cake, nicely browned on the outside, with a soft, tender crumb.

More Coffee Cake Recipes

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Classic Carrot Cake with Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting

Tina Rupp

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Pastry chef Jodi Elliot prepares the ultimate version of carrot cake, that 1970s favorite: moist and not too sweet.

Carrot Cake Recipes

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Jacques Pépin's Favorite Pound Cake

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The French call pound cake quatre-quarts ("four-fourths") because it is made with equal parts flour, sugar, eggs and butter. Jacques Pépin's mother, aunt and cousin all have their versions. He likes to fold in candied citrus peels to make a French fruit cake; he also loves plain slices dipped in espresso.

More Desserts by Jacques Pépin

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Walnut Cake with Apricot Preserves

Photo © Anders Schonnemann

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Sarah Copeland makes this cake using nuts from the trees on her mother-in-law's property. This lovely, light cake has just four ingredients and is filled with apricot preserves.

Baking Tips from Cake Experts Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

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Ligurian Olive Oil Cake

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Ligurian olive oil is ideal in this lovely, light cake, because it's more delicate and buttery than many other Italian oils.

More Dessert Recipes

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German Chocolate Cake

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Sam German created the mild, dark baking chocolate called Baker's German's Sweet Chocolate in 1852; in the late 1950s, a Dallas newspaper published a recipe for German's Chocolate Cake. The dessert took the South by storm and has been a staple ever since.

Comfort Food Recipes

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Chocolate Lava Cakes with Strawberries

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Chris Yeo doesn't take credit for inventing this dessert—these individual cakes with molten centers appear on almost every restaurant menu in America. But his version is especially rich and chocolaty and made even better by the scoop of strawberry ice cream on top.

Chocolate Recipes

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Frozen Hazelnut Mousse Cakes with Armagnac

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This sophisticated dessert was inspired by a recipe from Lindsey Shere, founding pastry chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California.

Frozen Desserts

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Chocolate Cake

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Lessons from Cake Experts Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito

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Coconut Cake with Saffron Cream

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Saffron's earthy yet sweet flavors make the spice versatile enough to work in both savory dishes and desserts. Here, Tyler Brown uses saffron to flavor the pastry cream for his moist, airy take on coconut cake. Instead of making a classic round, Brown bakes the cake in a 9-by-13-inch pan and cuts it in half, then stacks the layers to make a handsome rectangle.

Dessert Recipes

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Chocolate Truffle Layer Cake

PHOTO © ANNA WILLIAMS

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This outrageous chocolate cake was born from a lucky mistake. Pastry chef Kimberly Sklar was baking a crème fraîche-spiked chocolate cake and, by accident, took the pan out of the oven early. Discovering that the cake was superfudgy, she layered it with dark chocolate and white chocolate ganache, then covered it in dark chocolate frosting.

Layer Cake Recipes

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Warm Strawberry Crumb Cake

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Gerard Craft tops spring's first strawberries with batter and bakes them until the fruit is warm and jammy and the cake is airy, with a wonderful, crisp crust.

More Fruit Desserts

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Crunchy Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Layer Cake

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The genius of this layer cake is its extraordinarily crunchy filling, made with almonds, salted peanuts, creamy peanut butter, chocolate and Rice Krispies. The silky milk-chocolate ganache frosting almost pushes the recipe over the top.

Five Secrets to Great Cake

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Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

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Kristin Ferguson prepares this deliciously fruity pineapple upside-down cake in individual ring molds. She pairs the mini cakes with homemade buttermilk ice cream. At home, bake a full-size cake in an 8-inch round pan and serve it with store-bought ice cream or whipped cream.

Classic American Recipes

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Great-Grandmother Pearl's Angel Food Cake with Peaches

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"My great-grandmother won so many blue ribbons with this cake," Katie Lee says. "I love to serve it with peaches, because the cake sops up the juices so nicely." It's tough to imagine beating the 16 egg whites by hand, as Pearl used to do...until the day this recipe won her a KitchenAid stand mixer.

4th of July Desserts

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Lemon-Curd Cakes with Poppy Seeds

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"The lemon-poppy seed combo is classic," says Vinny Dotolo. "When I was a kid, I ate lemon-poppy seed muffins for breakfast and with ice cream for dessert." Now he turns the pairing into lovely cakes: They have a tender cakey layer on the bottom, a luscious curd-like layer on top and poppy-seed crème fraîche to finish the whole thing off.

Beautiful Desserts

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Double-Chocolate Bundt Cake with Ganache Glaze

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Many Bundt cakes are heavy and buttery, but this one is surprisingly light and incredibly moist under its silky chocolate glaze. Strong-brewed coffee in the batter intensifies the chocolate flavor while cutting the sweetness.

The Beauty of Bundt Cakes

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Baked Alaska Birthday Cake

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This ultimate birthday cake features three flavors of ice cream, moist chocolate cake, nutty ganache and fluffy meringue.

Classic All-American Recipes

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Banana Cake

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Affordable Recipes

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Deep Dark Chocolate Coconut Cake

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Feeling blue? Have a slice of this cake. The chocolate and yogurt it's made with can supposedly boost levels of the feel-good brain chemical tyrosine.

Chocolate Cakes

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Fresh Fruit Cake

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The inspiration for this cake comes from Diana Sturgis's mother-in-law's German apple kuchen.

Global Recipe Guide

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Warm Double-Chocolate Brownie Cakes

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Brownie meets cake in this fun dessert from Emily Luchetti, a cookbook author and pastry chef. She bakes the batter in muffin cups so the edges turn crispy and chewy like a brownie, but the inside becomes soft and fluffy like a cake.

Brownie Recipes

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Nutella-Swirl Pound Cake

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Lauren Chattman makes this pound cake especially rich by swirling in the chocolate-hazelnut spread Nutella. She recommends serving the cake with coffee ice cream.

Ideas for Nutella

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Strawberry Shortcake

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Cake flour is the secret ingredient in this lusciously light shortcake. Make sure that you use pure cake flour as opposed to self-rising cake flour, which is similarly packaged. This dessert is at its best within 30 minutes of assembly.

American Recipes

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Almond, Elderflower and Lime Travel Cakes

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Inspired by French travel cakes (small sweets meant for bringing to parties, picnics and other events), William Werner created these miniature desserts. He calls them "gussied-up pound cakes."

Picnic Desserts

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Maple-Bourbon Banana Pudding Cake

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While this delicious, simple cake bakes, a sweet, rich sauce forms in the bottom of the dish.

5 Secrets to Great Cake

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Apple-Raisin Crumb Cake

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Caramelized apples and pecan-laced streusel make Andrew Zimmern’s lightly spiced crumb cake totally irresistible.

Delicious Coffee Cakes

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Olive Oil Cake with Honey-Yogurt Cream and Strawberries 

Eric Wolfinger

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This is no featherweight spring cake: Olive oil and almond flour keep it dense and moist so it can hold plenty of juicy macerated strawberries. An infusion of lime in the cake batter and a tangy yogurt whipped cream brightens each slice.

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Cakes

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Honey Cake with Citrus Frosting

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Buttermilk Bundt Cake with Lemon Glaze

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Classic Carrot Cake with Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting

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Jacques Pépin's Favorite Pound Cake

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Walnut Cake with Apricot Preserves

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Ligurian Olive Oil Cake

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German Chocolate Cake

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Chocolate Lava Cakes with Strawberries

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Frozen Hazelnut Mousse Cakes with Armagnac

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Chocolate Cake

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Coconut Cake with Saffron Cream

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Chocolate Truffle Layer Cake

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Warm Strawberry Crumb Cake

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Crunchy Milk Chocolate-Peanut Butter Layer Cake

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Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

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Great-Grandmother Pearl's Angel Food Cake with Peaches

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Lemon-Curd Cakes with Poppy Seeds

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Double-Chocolate Bundt Cake with Ganache Glaze

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Baked Alaska Birthday Cake

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Banana Cake

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Deep Dark Chocolate Coconut Cake

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Fresh Fruit Cake

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Warm Double-Chocolate Brownie Cakes

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Nutella-Swirl Pound Cake

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Strawberry Shortcake

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Almond, Elderflower and Lime Travel Cakes

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Honey Cake with Citrus Frosting 

Olive Oil Cake with Honey-Yogurt Cream and Strawberries 