Layer Cake

This cake is like a party in your mouth. The cake itself is very fluffy because of the coconut cream. It's all about coconut, with coconut icing and real coconut flakes covering the entire cake.

Chocolate cake is a beautiful thing on its own, but adding a thick layer of sharp passionfruit curd undercuts the heavy richness and balances the sweetness—which dangerously means that one slice is no longer enough…

This summery, thyme-scented layer cake is easier to pull off than it looks. The genoise-style sponge is made with melted butter for a tender, flavorful base, and sour cream adds brightness to the whipped-cream filling.

This cake tastes like a strawberry malted milkshake. The white chocolate nest? That just makes it irresistible.

It may look like a giant lunchbox treat, but an ultra-smooth ganache and a final flourish of crunchy sea salt make this one elegant cake.

This version of our delicious vanilla-buttermilk cake is doubled up to make a pretty layer cake perfect for birthdays or any festive occasion.

Baking a wedding cake is not as crazy—or difficult—as it sounds! This stunning and delicious cake is designed to be as streamlined as possible. The moist buttermilk cake requires no trimming, the cream cheese frosting is much more simple (and just as stable) as wedding cake's typical buttercream, and edible flowers and pretty raspberries make decorating a breeze.

Talk about a showstopper! A stack of traditional flapjacks with butter and syrup is fabulous enough as is, but here we're taking that idea into mind-blowing dessert territory. 

Mayonnaise in the batter isn't as weird as it sounds—it's just eggs and oil, after all. It's also why this cake is so moist.

We admit that we have had cake for breakfast before. Who hasn't? But how about breakfast for dessert? This recipe came about when we accidentally made too much pancake batter on Sunday morning. It's our take on a thousand-layer cake. The pancakes can be made up to a day ahead and refrigerated. The cake can be assembled up to 2 hours ahead. Not feeling like dessert? Prepare the pancakes using only 2 tablespoons of sugar and have them for breakfast.

Osteen likes to frost these cakes while they're still warm. They'll absorb some of the frosting, which takes on the consistency of a glaze.

This carrot cake from Becky Guyton, a home cook in Ohio, is one of our most beloved recipes, perhaps because it achieves the perfect balance of tangy and sweet, spongy and creamy, dense and light. Originally appearing in a 1994 Bon Appétit column, it’s almost as moist as bread pudding. To cut back on the sweetness, just reduce the amount of sugar in the icing to three cups.

Inspired by a style of cake from California's Miette bakeries, we frost the top and middle layers of this stunner but leave the sides naked to showcase the almond cake. Don't have a pastry bag or star tip to frost the layers? Fill a resealable plastic bag with the frosting, snip off a corner, and pipe away.

Forget the boxed version you grew up with. This yellow cake gets a rich dark-chocolate frosting with a touch of tang thanks to sour cream. For the best presentation, it's important to cut the cake layers evenly.

This is a Baker & Spice original and it's our most popular cake—loved by men and women alike! The buttercream frosting is tinted pink by a raspberry puree (not food coloring)—be sure to save your extra whites from baking the cake to make the frosting. The cake itself is a rich, moist chocolate cake. If you want a go-to recipe for all your chocolate cake cravings, this is the one.

When it comes to ice cream cakes, there are no hard-and-fast rules as to what form they can take. Some consist solely of ice cream molded and then decorated to resemble a cake, while others intersperse layers of ice cream with thin layers of cake, crisp meringue, or even crumbled cookies. Our red, white, and blue July 4th extravaganza is a gorgeous amalgam of ice cream, cake, and blueberries and raspberries cooked separately into their own jammy fillings. Frosted simply in sweetened whipped cream and topped with more berries, this cake sparkles as much as the fireworks in the sky! Editor's Note: This recipe is part of Gourmet's Modern Menu for A Fourth of July Cookout. Menu also includes Grilled Corn with Honey-Ginger Barbecue Sauce and Grilled Shrimp with Honey-Ginger Barbecue Sauce.

This chiffon cake filled with rose-scented whipped cream is inspired by the aromatics found in Persian, Turkish, and Indian confections. Cardamom seeds have more flavor than the ground powder and are like little explosions of spice in the cake.

White cakes, as opposed to butter cakes like the one on page 428, are made with egg whites only, and they offer another good lesson in how French meringue can help give loft, or leavening, to a cake. (The heat of the oven causes the beaten whites to expand; in this case, they are helped by a chemical leavener, namely baking powder.) It’s important to beat the whites until they are stiff but not dry, and to make sure that you fold them into the batter very gently, in parts, so that they retain their volume. First, you fold in just a third of the beaten whites to “lighten” the creamed batter (so it is easier to incorporate the rest without overmixing), then you very gently fold in the rest and quickly transfer the batter to the prepared pans, lest it lose any volume. True to its name, the cake remains pure white inside after baking, save for the brown flecks of flavor-enhancing vanilla seeds.