32 Graduation Cakes That Are Ready to Get This Party Started

Time to oust your box cake mix, and embrace your inner baker with this basic yellow cake formula. This recipe will raise your cake-crafting confidence to new heights the first time you try it. As the name suggests, the numbers represent the measurements of the ingredients in the cake. Just remember what number matches with which ingredient, and you can easily memorize this recipe to whip up anytime you please. The buttery yellow cake is moist and has a perfectly dense crumb. Consider the 1-2-3-4 Cake a blank canvas; have fun adding layers of your buttercream frosting, whipped cream with fruit, or your own favorite frosting. One key to keep in mind when making this cake is that you really do need to have your butter softened and, ideally, your eggs at room temperature. Mixing these ingredients in when cold makes them more difficult to incorporate and can yield a “broken” batter. When baking the cake, be sure to use a light baking pan to help prevent over-browning. If you see that the top of your cake is brown, but the center is still wet, make a foil tent over the cake to keep it from getting darker. 

Made with a simple buttercream frosting and topped with festive decorations, this cake is a perfect and simple way to celebrate the graduate in your life. 

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.

Perfect for birthdays, showers, or special get-togethers, this flower-topped layer cake is so pretty you won’t want to cut it! Made with a lemon cake mix and Lemon Buttercream frosting, it’s incredibly simple to make, even though it looks impressive. Top with a ring of edible flowers and prepare for complements.

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. 

The addition of cinnamon adds a kick of “something special” to this rich chocolate sheet cake, but if you prefer, you can reduce the amount or leave the cinnamon out all together; you will simply have a delightful, classic chocolate cake on your hands. Once topped off with a decadent chocolate-cream cheese frosting, this cake is ready to please at virtually any event you bring it to.

Fresh flowers make this cake simply gorgeous—no decorating skills required! Simply choose edible blooms and petals (such as Carnations, English daisies, freesia, lavender, nasturtium, pansies, peonies, roses, stock, sweet William, tuberous begonias, or violets) For a smooth finish, dip a knife or offset spatula in hot water; then wipe it dry before frosting the cake.

If you've never known the glory of a mayonnaise cake, you're in for a treat! The staple ingredient yields an ultra-moist crumb and keeps the sugar from taking over your taste buds.

Chocolate cake with Swiss meringe buttercream will get you across the finish line, or help someone else to. 

Trust us: This simple and swoon-worthy sheet cake will be a keeper in your recipe box. File it under "Springtime Crowd-pleaser."

With a name like Mile-High, this delectable treat does not imply a lack of generosity. The toasted coconut cupcake will rise to any occasion - perfect for entertaining with its delightful display of crisped coconut embellishment. Whoever says too much is a bad thing clearly has not experienced the Mile-High Coconut Cupcake!

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.

One of our testers called this "the ultimate banana pudding in cake form." Tender laters of cake, creamy vanilla custard, and bananas come together to create a mouthwatering dessert. Warning: There won't be leftovers. 

Everything you love about classic Italian tiramisu, layered into an impressive cake. 

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. 

This vegan cake (no eggs or butter!) is so delicious that our kids begged for more. The frosting is silky smooth, and the cake is light and loaded with chocolate flavor, and healthy fats.

Nutty Browned Butter Frosting meets tender pecan cake in this showstopping three-layer dessert. When browning the butter for the frosting, pour the butter into a bowl as soon as it turns golden brown, or it will continue to cook and get too dark.

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 simply mix 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 it will 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. 

This colorful unicorn-inspired layer cake is the pinnacle of cuteness—perfect for a birthday party or for anyone who’s just super into the current unicorn craze.

Perfect for birthdays, showers, or special get-togethers, this flower-topped layer cake is so pretty you won’t want to cut it! Made with a lemon cake mix and Lemon Buttercream frosting, it’s incredibly simple to make, even though it looks impressive. Top with a ring of edible flowers and prepare for complements.

The delicate blance of sweet, bitter and citrus that makes the cocktail so refreshing also makes for an unusual citrus cake. The inclusion of the orange juice and the Aperol gives the frosting a citrus note, too. 

What’s better than pound cake? A stuffed pound cake, that’s what. A rich, cookies-and-cream filling takes a prepared pound cake to the next level. For this recipe, check the supermarket bakery for a pound cake on the larger side; alternatively, if you go with a smaller loaf cake (like a Sara Lee brand pound cake), go ahead and grab two—you’ll have enough filling to go around. For a different spin, swap the Oreo cookies for chopped peanut butter cups or sliced fresh strawberries.

Turn the cocktail that's basically a dessert into an actual dessert.