Cakes

A chocolate lover's dream come true, in the form of a lightly textured, dark chocolate mousse. Not too sweet, not too rich—just right.

Trust us when we tell you this cake is about as unfussy as it gets. An hour from start to finish, no tricky ingredients and a taste reminiscent of an old-school boxed cake mix.

No one will ever know it's vegan...unless you tell them. All you'll experience is chocolate through and through.

Warmly spiced with a pudding-like texture, this apple cake from Edna Lewis is truly easy—just stir together by hand. And it's unforgettable for reasons that have nothing to do with its ease.

Fine-crumbed and sparely sweet, these sophisticated little cakes do wonders for white chocolate's tarnished reputation. Confection perfection.

The combination of tart, citrusy orange with not-too-dark chocolate was a smashing success at the Barefoot Contessa. It's just as much a hit at home.

Oatmeal cake, to us, is synonymous with breakfast, seeing as there's wholesome oatmeal beneath all that coconut and old-fashioned boiled frosting.

Seductive in that way that only butter and sugar can be, this satiny smooth Swiss meringue buttercream may make you swear off every other frosting recipe. And it's easy to make. We show you how.

Watch out, pumpkin pie. Someone wants your job. Badly. This wonderfully luxuriant pumpkin cheesecake from Rose Levy Beranbaum is a terribly enticing alternative to tradition.

Stunning enough for special occasions. Easy enough for weekday breakfasts. Marvelous enough to make you want it every damn day.

This simple yet spectacular riff on coffee cake—there's actually coffee in the cake—is rich and robust and rousing in that way only espresso can be.

This spice cake is soaked with rum syrup, making a lovely, albeit slightly boozy, gift when wrapped in parchment and tied with a bow.

Molten, gooey, dense, chocolatey, and done in minutes with nary any evidence, er, we mean cleanup, this microwave mug cake is the solution to when you need dessert stat.

This Italian classic is imbued with citrus and cinnamon and is slightly more pudding-like than what most of us are accustomed to in a cheesecake. Though no complaints here. None whatsoever.

Not as dense or as sweet as a pound cake, this lovely tea cake is rich and buttery and subtly infused with layers of apple and cinnamon with a tart lemon drizzle as a finishing flourish.

Elegant enough for company, simple enough for every day, and versatile enough for breakfast and midnight snack and pretty much every moment in between.

A boozy keeper of a cake, this recipe takes its title from a shot of rum, its compelling taste from ample butter, eggs, and cream, and its inimitable texture from layer after layer of apples.

Luscious. Magical. Perfect. Dreamy. Airy. Coconutty. Lovely. That's what we're hearing from folks who've tried this easy peasy coconut sheet cake.

A subtle heat coupled with the richness of chocolate make this a failproof way to woo friends and family. Gluten-free, too, though no one will notice anything's missing.

This rich, buttery, unabashedly sweet Southern tradition is a twist on a classic and becomes even more indulgent with a heavy-handed drizzle of caramel glaze.