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  4. 21 Easy Cake Recipes

21 Easy Cake Recipes

Updated January 15, 2019
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SweeTarts and Smarties Tie Dye Cake DCMS.jpg sweet tarts
Credit: tifs

Even beginning bakers can master these easy cake recipes. Start with a box of cake mix or a few simple ingredients to make a cake that's impressive, but won't take up your whole day. 

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Chocolate Tiramisu Poke Cake

Chocolate Tiramisu Poke Cake image
Credit: Daniel Agee

Chocolate Tiramisu Poke Cake Recipe

The poke cake technique is incredibly easy, but that doesn't mean that poke cakes have a simple flavor. Enjoy the irresistible textures of pudding, cake, and crushed espresso beans in each bite of with this chocoatey take on Tiramisu.

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Shortcut Carrot Sheet Cake

Carrot-Walnut-Coconut Sheet Cake image
Credit: Kelsey Hansen; Food Styling: Karen Rankin; Prop Styling: Audrey Davis

Shortcut Carrot Sheet Cake Recipe

This moist, delicious carrot cake has traditional ingredients like carrot, pineapple, and walnuts, with the addition of toasted coconut flakes to dress up cream cheese icing. The ease of assembly is the kicker here: a box mix enhanced with fresh ingredients comes together in minutes and is sure to impress guests. 

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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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Watercolor Cake

wd-Watercolor Cake image
Credit: Time Inc. Video Studio

Watercolor Cake Recipe

This stunning watercolor effect is a surprisingly simple cake decorating technique that makes for an incredibly special dessert. 

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Zodiac Cake

Zodiac Cake image
Credit: Daniel Agee; Food Styling: Paige Grandjean

Zodiac Cake Recipe

Create this stellar constellation-inspired Zodiac Cake using boxed cake mix, and just a little craftiness. The colorful astrological layer cake is fun to assemble and decorate, and would make for an awesome birthday centerpiece. 

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Basic Naked Cake

Basic Naked Cake
Credit: Emma Crist; Styling: Emma Crist

Basic Naked Cake Recipe

Instead of completely coating the entire cake, this unique cake decorating technique spreads the frosting thin enough to leave the layers exposed--i.e. 'naked.' If you added too much frosting at first, firmly scrape excess frosting away while smoothing it out at the same time using a metal bench scraper or offset spatula. Pro tip: Used boxed cake mix to make this recipe even easier. All-purpose flour and a handful of pantry-staple ingredient makes this ultra-fluffy batter even easier.

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One-Pot Chocolate Cake

one pot chocolate cake.jpg
Credit: TIFS

One-Pot Chocolate Cake Recipe

This delicious chocolate cake from our friend Joy the Baker comes together in one sauce pan, so you can enjoy the rich flavor and whipped topping without the worry of cleaning too many dishes afterwards!

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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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Easter Candy Snack Cake 

Easter Candy Snack Cakes image
Credit: Gina DeSimone; Prop Styling: Kashara Johnson; Food Styling: Emily Nabors Hall

Easter Candy Snack Cake  Recipe

Dotted with pastel Easter candies and drizzled with white chocolate, this easy snack cake is the perfect, simple treat to whip up for an Easter celebration. In fact, the buttery dessert caught our test kitchen crew completely off-guard; it may appear “cute” and unassuming, but rest assured, this snack cake is no joke in terms of being addictively delicious. It’s not a cake you’ll be able to have “just a little piece” of. 

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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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Tahini-Blueberry Sheet Cake With Strawberry Buttercream

Tahini-Blueberry Sheet Cake With Strawberry Buttercream image
Credit: Aaron Kirk; Prop Styling: Kashara Johnson; Food Styling: Pam Lolley

Tahini-Blueberry Sheet Cake With Strawberry Buttercream Recipe

Perfect for a graduation party or summer cookout, this impressive dessert offers the ease and crowd-friendly factor that we associate with a sheet cake, as well as a delightful twist of creativity and surprising vibrancy with the incorporation of tahini and fresh berries. If you have a jar of the trendy sesame seed paste hanging out in your pantry, trust us—it’s high time to go beyond hummus and welcome it into your dessert life. Tahini lends a delicious toasty quality to the tender cake while fresh blueberries dotted throughout the batter balance this nutty depth with their bright, juicy sweetness. A simple strawberry buttercream ties everything together and makes for a low-effort, eye-catching presentation. 

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Better Than Sex Cake

Better Than Sex Cake
Credit: Beth Branch

Better Than Sex Cake Recipe

Chocolate, caramel, and Heath candy take chocolate cake to a whole new level.

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Skittles Rainbow Cake

Skittles Rainbow Cake image
Credit: Time Inc. Video Studio

Skittles Rainbow Cake Recipe

Cake the rainbow.

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Lemon-Olive Oil Cake with Whipped Mascarpone

lemon-olive-oil-cake-with-whipped-mascarpone
Credit: Photographer: Hector Manuel Sanchez; Prop Styling: Lauren Smith Ford; Food Styling: Tina Bell Stamos

Lemon-Olive Oil Cake with Whipped Mascarpone Recipe

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Fresh Strawberry Sheet Cake

Fresh Strawberry Sheet Cake image
Credit: Time Inc. Video Studio

Fresh Strawberry Sheet Cake Recipe

This simple, fresh strawberry cake is the perfect springtime dessert. Besides being wonderfully easy to slice and serve for a crowd, sheet cakes (like this pink beauty) are great for entertaining because they require no special cake frosting skills to look impressive. 

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Margarita Cake

Margarita Cake image
Credit: Time Inc. Video Studio

Margarita Cake Recipe

It’s everyone’s favorite refreshing tequila cocktail… in cake form. Truly, what could be better? With tart lime curd and tequila syrup, this festive show-stopper cake does justice to the flavors of an authentic margarita. 

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Sweet Potato Dump Cake

sweet-potato-dumpcake-2-DCMS-Large.jpg
Credit: TIFS

Sweet Potato Dump Cake Recipe

All the fall flavors you could possibly want in one simple dessert.

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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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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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Chocolate Marble Sheet Cake

Chocolate Marble Sheet Cake
Credit: Jennifer Davick; Styling: Mindi Shapiro Levine

Chocolate Marble Sheet Cake Recipe

Swirl chocolate and yellow cake batter together in this marble sheetcake recipe and top with a rich mocha frosting.

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Chocolate Marble Sheet Cake

SweeTarts and Smarties Tie Dye Cake DCMS.jpg sweet tarts
Credit: tifs

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    1 of 21 Chocolate Tiramisu Poke Cake
    2 of 21 Shortcut Carrot Sheet Cake
    3 of 21 Tiramisu Cake
    4 of 21 Watercolor Cake
    5 of 21 Zodiac Cake
    6 of 21 Basic Naked Cake
    7 of 21 One-Pot Chocolate Cake
    8 of 21 Confetti Flower Cake
    9 of 21 Easter Candy Snack Cake 
    10 of 21 Apple Bundt Cake with Apple-Cream Cheese Glaze 
    11 of 21 Tahini-Blueberry Sheet Cake With Strawberry Buttercream
    12 of 21 Better Than Sex Cake
    13 of 21 Skittles Rainbow Cake
    14 of 21 Lemon-Olive Oil Cake with Whipped Mascarpone
    15 of 21 Fresh Strawberry Sheet Cake
    16 of 21 Margarita Cake
    17 of 21 Sweet Potato Dump Cake
    18 of 21 Classic Birthday Cake
    19 of 21 Blueberry-Peach Upside Down Cake
    20 of 21 Chocolate Marble Sheet Cake
    21 of 21 Chocolate Marble Sheet Cake

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