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World's Best Chocolate Cake

The recipe for this cake, adapted from "Sweet" by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh, first appeared in an article written about Ms. Goh when she ran her cafe, the Mortar & Pestle, in Melbourne, Australia....

Author: Yotam Ottolenghi

Strawberry and Cream Layer Cake

This delicate cake is inspired by fraisier, a French cake made from layers of sponge, strawberries and cream. Fraisier cakes are elaborately constructed and typically combine several components to make...

Author: Claire Saffitz

Hawaiian Guava Cake

Now considered a classic Hawaiian dessert, guava cake was created at Dee Lite Bakery in Honolulu, where it became widely popular. This version is adapted from blogger Alana Kysar's "Aloha Kitchen: Recipes...

Author: Kiera Wright-Ruiz

Apricot Upside Down Cake

Apricot halves, baked in a faux caramel of melted butter, brown sugar and spices, burst with punchy flavor in every bite of this cake. The sticky topping complements the almost-tart, fleshy stone fruit,...

Author: Vallery Lomas

Black Forest Cake

Black forest cake, which originated in the Black Forest region of Germany, is typically made with a light chocolate sponge cake, soaked with cherry syrup and cherry brandy (Kirsch), then layered with whipped...

Author: Samantha Seneviratne

Butter Mochi

Tender and chewy, this big-batch dessert - as comforting as cake and as fun as bar cookies - is always a hit at parties. Mochiko, sweet rice flour, not only gives it its distinctive marshmallow-like softness,...

Author: Genevieve Ko

Chocolate Cherry Cake

Topped with a pompadour of airy whipped cream frosting - which tastes comfortingly of hot cocoa - this cake is reminiscent of Black Forest gâteau but with more chocolaty depth. The cake's dark chocolate...

Author: Eric Kim

Southern Caramel Cake

This traditional Southern caramel cake is perfect for when you want layer cake, and you'd like it fast. It's light and fluffy under the sweet caramel glaze, which hardens at room temperature and shatters...

Author: Millie Peartree

Bibingka (Filipino Coconut Rice Cake)

This recipe for bibingka, the celebratory rice cake traditionally eaten around Christmastime in the Philippines, comes from the New York restaurateur Nicole Ponseca. It's a savory side dish with an edge...

Author: Tejal Rao

Mom's Famous Rum Cake

This classic rum cake recipe, built around a yellow cake mix, is a favorite of mushers and snowmobilers passing through the village of Tanana, Alaska, in the wintertime. It's hard to mess up, comes together...

Author: Julia O'Malley

Olive Oil Cake

This simple, lemon-scented olive oil cake is an elegant treat all by itself or topped with whipped cream, fruit or ice cream. The olive oil contributes a pleasant fruity flavor while keeping the cake moister...

Author: Samantha Seneviratne

Dolester Miles' Coconut Pecan Cake

This is a rich, special-occasion cake that takes the traditional Southern coconut cake to another level, with ground toasted pecans in the batter and an easy-to-make Chantilly cream for frosting. It has...

Author: Kim Severson

Chocolate Cake With Peppermint Frosting

Dutch-process cocoa and a bit of espresso powder give this simple one-bowl cake deep chocolate flavor without much effort. The generous swoop of fluffy peppermint buttercream frosting makes it a festive...

Author: Yossy Arefi

Chocolate Stout Cake With Coffee Glaze

This dark chocolate cake relies on stout beer to add malted notes. Coffee helps enhance the chocolate flavor, and sour cream keeps the cake moist for days. A spiked coffee glaze studded with cacao nibs...

Author: Laurie Ellen Pellicano

Classic Coconut Cake

One of the beauties of layer cake is that you can do much of the work in advance. The cake layers can be baked one day ahead, wrapped tightly and kept at room temperature. The frosting can be made up to...

Author: Alison Roman

Pumpkin Bundt Cake With Maple Brown Butter Glaze

Bundt cakes are classic showstoppers - big, lofty and usually dressed in elegant drizzles and drips of glaze. Here, a dense, moist cake full of warm fall spices and pumpkin purée is encased in a layer...

Author: Yossy Arefi

Blackout Cake

This absurdly rich chocolate cake came to The Times in a 1991 article by Molly O'Neill about Ebinger's, the legendary chain of Brooklyn bakeries that closed its doors in 1972 after 74 years in business....

Author: The New York Times

Almond Cake

This exquisite recipe came to The Times in a 2001 article by Amanda Hesser about the first meal her now mother-in-law, Elizabeth Friend, prepared for her. The meal ended with this simple almond cake. Ms....

Author: Amanda Hesser

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Crackly on top and fudgy yet tender in the center, this cake tastes like a complex restaurant dessert, but comes together effortlessly in one bowl. Chocolate chips save you the messy step of chopping chocolate...

Author: Genevieve Ko

Chocolate Church Cake

Layer cakes are formative for Southerners: They grace wedding tables, shiva gatherings, quinceañeras, baptisms and funerals. Because of this - and because layer cakes may be as close as some will ever...

Author: Lisa Donovan

Coconut Pound Cake

Coconut oil and coconut milk add a tasty tropical essence to this moist pound cake. Be sure to buy unrefined virgin coconut oil, as it has the best coconut flavor and aroma. Coconut oil is much easier...

Author: Samantha Seneviratne

Summer Berry Cream Cake

A sweet ending for a summer solstice party, this spongecake is light and not too sweet, and the cream and berries make it seem almost more of an unmolded trifle than a cake. I seem to remember that in...

Author: Nigella Lawson

Spicy Ginger Applesauce Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting

This simple sheet cake is packed with three kinds of spicy ginger: fresh, ground and crystallized. The cake is delicious on its own, but cream cheese frosting and a sprinkle of crystallized ginger push...

Author: Yossy Arefi

Granny's Chocolate Cake

This cake recipe was adapted from the chef Larry Forgione, who served his grandmother's cake recipe at his restaurant An American Place. The dessert proved so popular that every time he tried to take it...

Author: Melissa Clark

Cranberry Crumb Cake

With their pleasant tang and gorgeous color, cranberries take this brunch staple to the next level. Here, they're nestled in a sour cream cake batter that's topped with a butter crumb, and cook down to...

Author: Samantha Seneviratne

Fresh Ginger Cake

David Lebovitz's headily spiced cake, which Amanda Hesser wrote about in The Times in 1999, calls for a quarter-pound of fresh ginger. Mr. Lebovitz, who was a pastry chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif.,...

Author: Amanda Hesser

Summer Berry Stacked Shortcake

This stacked shortcake gives a classic summer dessert the large-format (think sheet cake and slab pies) treatment with big tender biscuits layered with juicy berries, and tangy yogurt whipped cream. Use...

Author: Yossy Arefi

Texas Sheet Cake

Expansive yet barely an inch tall, this chocolate-on-chocolate special of the Lone Star State starts with a cake that's even lighter than devil's food. A hot cocoa icing sheens its surface and soaks into...

Author: Genevieve Ko

Sacher Torte

In this version of the classic Viennese Sacher torte, from Luisa Weiss's cookbook "Classic German Baking," two dense chocolate cake layers are filled and topped with rum-scented apricot jam, then coated...

Author: Melissa Clark

Sponge Cake

The streamlined mixing technique for this versatile cake, which is leavened with only eggs, borrows from génoise, chiffon cake and a style of roll cakes popular in Asian bakeries. The result is an airy,...

Author: Claire Saffitz

Maida Heatter's Chocolate Mousse Torte

Maida Heatter, the legendary dessert-cookbook author, tested this recipe 20 times before deeming it good enough for publication in The Times in May 1972. Her toil was worth the trouble: Eight months later,...

Author: Margaux Laskey

Boston Cream Pie

An American classic, Boston cream pie isn't a pie at all. Its base is an old-fashioned hot milk cake, a downy-soft, buttery yellow cake. How you whip the eggs and the sugar is critical, as the tiny air...

Author: Samantha Seneviratne

Peach Poundcake

This recipe proves that the perfect summer pound cake takes no special equipment or skill to pull off. Once you've prepared the peaches, this is essentially a dump-and-whisk cake. Puréed peaches (plus...

Author: Jerrelle Guy

Chocolate Whiskey Cake

This recipe came to The Times from Marti Buckley Kilpatrick, who adapted it from Dol Miles, the pastry chef at Frank Stitt's Bottega restaurant in Birmingham, Ala. Ms. Kilpatrick describes the cake as...

Author: Melissa Clark

Lemon Sheet Cake With Buttercream Frosting

This pleasantly zesty lemon cake is baked in a standard 9-by-13-inch pan, no layering or trimming required, and is easy enough to bake on a weekday. Cover the cake with casual swoops of fluffy lemon buttercream...

Author: Yossy Arefi

Yogurt Cake

This Turkish yogurt cake, adapted from the cookbook "Claudia Roden's Mediterranean," is similar to a lemon-scented cheesecake, but it's lighter and has a fresher, tangier flavor. It's good both warm and...

Author: Melissa Clark

Good Fruitcake

The ridicule that most fruitcakes face has everything to do with bad recipes, which skimp on fruit and load on the batter. In a good fruitcake the batter should barely be perceptible, acting merely as...

Author: Amanda Hesser

Apple Bourbon Bundt Cake

One of my favorite pie alternatives is bundt cake. A hearty spice-filled bundt cake made from grated apples and toasted nuts, then soaked in whiskey syrup, defies the cliché of Thanksgiving dessert, yet...

Author: Melissa Clark

Brown Sugar Layer Cake With Cranberry Buttercream

An easy cranberry jam lends its naturally pink hue and pleasantly tart flavor to this stunning cake. It's also tucked between the layers of a fluffy brown sugar buttermilk cake for an extra hit of cranberry...

Author: Yossy Arefi

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bundt Cake

This cake version of a peanut butter cup boasts moist devil's food cake wrapped around a soft, peanut buttery cake core. The peanut butter cake batter will stay nicely centered if you enlist the help of...

Author: Erin Jeanne McDowell

Red Velvet Cupcakes

This bright and beautiful Southern staple has a hint of chocolate flavor that's paired with a cream cheese frosting, keeping it from being too sweet. Part of red velvet cake's allure is how moist it is,...

Author: Millie Peartree

Pumpkin Layer Cake With Caramel Buttercream

Warmly spiced pumpkin cake and toasty caramel are a natural pair in this fall showstopper. The cake is light and fluffy with just enough spice to highlight the pumpkin flavor, while a generous pour of...

Author: Yossy Arefi

Craquelin Topped Cream Puffs

Pâte à choux, aka cream puff dough, is a baker's putty, the mixture that becomes the cream puff as well as éclairs, beignets, churros, croquembouches, gâteaux St. Honoré and tens more desserts. The...

Author: Dorie Greenspan

German Chocolate Cake

German chocolate cake is an American classic, named after a chocolatier called Samuel German (as opposed to the European nation). Milder than devil's food cake, this chocolate cake has layers that are...

Author: Samantha Seneviratne

Russian Honey Cake

The key to making this exquisite, gravity-defying cake, which comes from Michelle Polzine of 20th Century Cafe in San Francisco, is patience. This cake takes a lot of time! Set some aside to do it right....

Author: Samin Nosrat

Irish Cream Poundcake

This classic poundcake has a boozy twist that's perfect for parties, St. Patrick's Day and beyond. Irish cream liqueur - a rich blend of Irish whiskey, cream, sugar, vanilla and other flavorings - is added...

Author: Erin Jeanne McDowell

Mocha Fudge Cake

Moist, fudgy and homey, this easy cake is made in a standard-sized food processor (yes, the batter will fit) and adorned with mocha frosting.

Author: The New York Times

Mocha Chocolate Chip Cake

Alice's Tea Cup, which is owned by the sisters Haley Fox and Lauren Fox, is known for its scones, but the chainlet of teahouses in New York also makes pastries, cakes and other treats. This recipe is an...

Author: Alex Witchel

Berry Blitz Torte

Blitz means "lightning" in German, referring to the lightning-quick way this old-fashioned cake comes together, at least compared with the more ornately frosted tortes popular a century ago. Buttery, nutmeg-scented...

Author: Melissa Clark

Victoria Sponge Cake

This traditional British layer cake is made up of two buttery, tender spongecake rounds that sandwich a thick layer of jam and, often, a dollop of sweetened whipped cream. It's a simple, homey confection...

Author: Melissa Clark