Ultimate Cake Recipes

By The editors of MidwestLiving.com

Let our 49 cake recipes inspire you with ideas for chocolate cake, red velvet cake, pumpkin cake, coconut cake, carrot cake and other delicious cakes.

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Neapolitan Party Cake

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This crowd-pleaser is easier than it looks. (You only make one batter.) Garnish the strawberry-frosted cake with double-dipped berries to hint at the festive stripes hiding inside.

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Cafe Latte's Turtle Cake

Blaine Moats
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Sheer three-layered audacity put this creation from a Saint Paul bakery in our hall of fame: buttermilk-cocoa cake, candylike chocolate frosting and creamy caramel sauce. Originally published: December 2005.

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Prettier by the pound

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St. Louis pastry chef Nathaniel Reid gives pound cake a chic, patisserie-style makeover. Your trusty loaf pan never had it so good.

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Peach Melba Upside-Down Cake

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Hello, color! Sunny peaches and ruby raspberries dance across  a tender buttermilk cornmeal cake. It's divine with whipped cream-if you're into that kind of thing.

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Coconut Cake

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This three-layer wonder stays extra moist thanks to butter and buttermilk. The blue-ribbon recipe is from Teresa Reese of Osceola, Nebraska.

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Quick Black Forest Cherry Cake

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This quick twist on the classic German chocolate-cherry cake uses boxed cake mix and cherry preserves. Don't skip the kirsch or brandy; it adds that signature Black Forest flavor.

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Three-Tiered Fudgy Chocolate Cake

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Buttermilk and sour cream lend moistness and tang to our old-fashioned chocolate cake. All that's missing are the birthday candles.

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Cookies-and-Cream Cake

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Combine white cake mix and Oreos for a super-easy dessert. The recipe, from a Spearville, Kansas, reader, was among the winners in a Midwest Living® chocolate recipe contest.

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Cutie-Pie Carrot Cake

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Book club meeting. Mother's Day brunch. A well-deserved raise. Cream cheese frosting is always the answer, especially when it's on a 6-inch cake that's perfectly sized for life's everyday celebrations.

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My My’s Brown Sugar Pound Cake

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Patty's grandmother sifted together the flour and baking powder three times before adding them to the batter. We had good results just whisking them together. This recipe comes from Patty Pinner's cookbook Sweets crownpublishing.com.

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Tres Leches Cake

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A Mexican standard and guaranteed backyard crowd-pleaser, our brown-sugar sheet cake is soaked in milky syrup, chilled, then topped with whipped cream and berries.

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Key Lime Coconut Cake with Marshmallow Frosting

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Billowy Meringue Frosting tops a moist and buttery lime-flecked cake whose subtle coconut flavor comes from canned cream of coconut.

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Chocolanutty Banana Cake

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Dessert or coffee cake? It's up to you. A hint of orange rounds out the flavors.

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Chocolate Pumpkin Cake

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This utterly unforgettable autumn cake layers moist chocolate-pumpkin cake, luscious milk chocolate ganache and fluffy pumpkin-spice whipped cream. The recipe comes from Minnesota blogger Amanda Rettke iambaker.net.

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Raspberry Swirl Angel Food Cake

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A subtle swirl of fresh raspberries infuses this homemade angel food cake with light fruit flavor. Like all angel food cakes, it has no fat or cholesterol.

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Carrot Pineapple Cake

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No one will believe you baked this beautiful, moist cake in your slow cooker! The homemade cream cheese frosting is lusciously delicious, but you can substitute canned frosting in a pinch.

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Our Best-Ever Chocolate Cake

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This recipe has been perfected through the years. We think you'll agree that it is the moistest, richest, "chocolatiest" cake ever. Of the many ways to frost it, we vote for our classic Chocolate-Sour Cream Frosting - though you can certainly use your family's favorite.

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Pumpkin-Praline Layer Cake

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This nutty layer cake is a favorite dessert with Midwest Living® readers. Whipped cream tops a moist filling of pumpkin, brown sugar, pecans, butter and more whipping cream.

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Zucchini Olive Oil Cake with Lemon Drizzle

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With its subtle mix of warm spices, vanilla, maple and citrus (and tangy white icing), this is no ordinary zucchini cake. The recipe comes from The Vegetable Butcher cookbook, by Cara Mangini.

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Hummingbird Cake

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This tall layer cake, with a medley of flavors from nuts, fruit and spices, comes from the kitchens of Silver Dollar City theme park near Branson, Missouri. Add a sprinkling of pecans on top for even more crunch.

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Double-Ginger Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

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Crystallized ginger and powdered dry ginger add welcome zing to an American classic. Fanning the pineapple like flower petals is striking, but also functional--no bare spots between rings.

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Lemony Prairie Cake

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Mix just six ingredients, including lemon-lime carbonated beverage, to make this lovely, citrusy cake from an Alta Vista, Kansas, reader.

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Tinted Angel Cake

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The many colors of Kool-Aid, a Nebraska invention, give an array of choices for this angel food cake that starts with a mix. Pink lemonade Kool-Aid adds pastel prettiness and a delicate flavor to Tinted Angel Cake. The tropical punch version gives the cake flavor that's as intense as its color.

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Maple Syrup Cake

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Ruth Smiley of Parke County, Indiana, gave us her recipe for Maple Syrup Cake, which she makes in a fluted tube pan. We mixed up an easy maple syrup icing to drizzle over the top.

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Cranberry Layer Cake

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This moist white cake combines toasted pecans and refreshing orange peel with cranberries. Orange peel flavors the thick cream cheese frosting, too.

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Country Chocolate Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting

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Begging for a crown of birthday candles, this layer cake has two kitchen tricks working in its favor. Mayonnaise yields a moist crumb; sour cream keeps sugary buttercream in tangy check. (Note: This recipe makes enough frosting to fill and frost the entire cake [top and sides]. To leave the sides unfrosted as we did in our photograph, just make a half batch.

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Buster Brown Cake with Delicious Icing

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A Canton, Ohio, reader contributed this recipe for a favorite brown sugar cake that is often served at family gatherings.

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Fresh Apple Cake

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This nutty comfort cake from Sharon Buckner of Rhineland, Missouri, gets a sugary top and caramelized gooey bottom as it cooks. Don't be surprised by the thick batter; it will bake into a moist, dense cake.

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Pioneer Wedding Stack Cake

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This wonderfully moist and generously spiced six-layer cake is a showy spin on humble applesauce cake.

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Toasted Fennel-Lemon Cake

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This moist beauty begs for a mug of afternoon tea. Fennel seeds add the faintest hint of licorice flavor, just enough to make the cake stand out from the other Bundts in the room. We like the sweeter flavor of Meyer lemons in this cake. Look for them sold in bags at large supermarkets. If you substitute regular lemons, reduce the zest to 2 tablespoons.

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Fabulous Red Velvet Cake

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We gussied up chocolate cake mix with sour cream and red food coloring, then crowned this cake with a white chocolate-cream cheese frosting and toasted coconut.

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Spiced Pecan Sweet Potato Cake

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Deborah Biggs of Omaha completes this amazingly moist dessert with Maple Whipped Cream.

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Old-Fashioned Pound Cake

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This recipe for an old-fashioned pound cake with a sugar-browned crust comes from a Benton Harbor, Michigan, reader, whose family eats the cake warm from the oven.

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Dutch Mocha Chocolate Cake

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Cocoa powder, coffee and sour cream combine to make this moist, dark three-layer cake. The Unforgettable White Chocolate Frosting (at end of recipe) is irresistible, but if you prefer, you can use a regular butter frosting.

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Pink Lemonade Strawberry Shortcake

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Pink lemonade concentrate gives a summery twist to classic strawberry shortcake.

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Poppy Seed Torte

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The recipe for this four-layer cake-with a puddinglike filling, unmistakable poppy seed flavor and soft whipped cream frosting-comes from Wisconsin's White Gull Inn.

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Best Carrot-Pineapple Cake

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Cream cheese frosting crowns a rich, moist and nutty carrot cake. Cinnamon and allspice add just the right spiciness.

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