25 Easy Easter Cakes

Recipe: Strawberry Dream Cake

You'll fall in love with this too-good-to-be-true strawberry cake. Fluffy whipped frosting made with marscapone cheese, sugar, whipping cream, and vanilla and almond extracts is the perfect finishing touch. We love the presentation of cake slices with upright strawberries between the layers. When it comes down to the details, this sweet confection takes the cake. 

Recipe: Coconut-Carrot Cake with Coconut Buttercream

If you're not confident with your layer cake skills, this sheet cake is perfect.

Recipe: Coconut Cream Cake

Look for packaged coconut shavings in your grocer's natural foods section.

Recipe: Strawberry-Lemonade Layer Cake

You can assemble this glorious cake up to two days ahead; store at room temp. Also, you can freeze cooled layers up to a month in plastic wrap and aluminum foil. The sweet-tart Strawberry-Lemonade Jam and Strawberry Frosting make for a delicious finish.

Recipe: Lemon-Lime Pound Cake

This recipe is based on a classic Southern favorite called 7UP Pound Cake, which was created in the 1950s when the soda company suggested using its soft drink instead of other liquid in pound cake recipes. The result: one of the best, and simplest, cakes you'll ever make.

Watch: Lemon-Lime Pound Cake

Recipe: The Ultimate Carrot Cake

These layers are tender, so remove from pans carefully!

Recipe: Lemon Sherbet Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

These citrus treats are too good to keep to yourself. Make an extra batch and bring to a friend for the sweetest surprise. 

Recipe: Triple-Chocolate Buttermilk Pound Cake

We took the traditional pound cake recipe and raised it a stunning, triple-chocolate twist. This cake means business. A duo of glazes—one creamy chocolate, the other subtle buttermilk—comes together atop this dreamy confection. It’s indulgent and, we admit, so much fun to eat and serve. Chocolate enthusiasts will be over the moon for this recipe, but it has enough unexpected flavor—thanks to the addition of the buttermilk glaze—that you’ll also win over the harder-to-please dessert eaters at the table. Warning: You—and they—won’t be able to resist a second slice. Go for it. We won’t tell.

Recipe: Lemon-Orange Chiffon Cake

Serve this decadent spring dessert at your next ladies' luncheon and wow the crowd with edible flowers.

Recipe: Strawberries-and-Cream Sheet Cake

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

Recipe: Key Lime Icebox Cake

Layers of tangy-sweet Key lime custard and graham crackers stack up to make one quick and easy layer cake with just enough pucker to take the heat off summer. Add the lime juice once you've fully cooked the custard to let the cornstarch thicken the mixture properly.

Recipe: Fresh Strawberry Meringue Cake

Securing parchment paper with masking tape (it won’t melt at the low temp) makes it easy to spread picture-perfect layers of meringue.

Recipe: Key Lime Pound Cake

Dress up traditional pound cake with a little lime zest and a homemade Key lime glaze for a deliciously tropical dessert.

Recipe: Carrot Cake with Chèvre Frosting

Substituting goat cheese for the standard cream cheese gives this frosting an extra-tangy kick.

Recipe: Green Tea-Honeysuckle Cake

Spring-green ribbons of matcha-flavored batter and a homemade honeysuckle glaze elevate a basic vanilla butter cake to gourmet status. Bonus: It tumbles from the pan perfectly fluted and party ready.

Recipe: Two-Step Fresh Peach Pound Cake

Turn out a high-rise cake with a moist, tender crumb by layering the ingredients in the bowl in the order specified. Don't have a stand mixer with a 4-qt. bowl and paddle attachment? Prep the batter the traditional way.

Recipe: Caramel Cake

This old-fashioned cake will seal your reputation as a baker.

Recipe: 35th Anniversary Hummingbird Cake

Over-ripe bananas (yellow peels splotched with brown flecks) are best for baking. You won't get the same depth of flavor or moistness without them.

Recipe: Layered Carrot Cake

The star of this classic carrot layer cake is the thick sweetened cream frosting that you spread between the cake layers and on the top and sides of the cake. The cake gets extra sweetness from the addition of crushed pineapple to the batter.

Recipe: Hummingbird Bundt Cake

From pineapple to cream cheese, the same ingredients first featured in the 1978 version of this popular layer cake still shine in our new version— simplified by baking in a Bundt pan.

Recipe: Triple-Decker Strawberry Cake

Layers of moist strawberry cake and Strawberry Buttercream Frosting make this three-layer cake a must for strawberry lovers.

Recipe: Mama Dip’s Carrot Cake

This recipe from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, restaurateur Mildred "Mama Dip" Council is one of the best carrot cakes we've tested. The cake layers can be made ahead and frozen up to one month.

Recipe: Heavenly Angel Food Cake

The rich, moist texture of this divine angel food cake is unlike any other. Made from scratch in minutes, it's spread with frosting that's a lemon lover's dream.

Recipe: Strawberry Swirl Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Here the cream cheese is added after beating the butter and sugar, and the cake bakes at a slightly higher temperature than usual.

Recipe: Best Carrot Cake

Make this classic favorite for a crowd and you might not have any leftovers to bring home. Simply adding a can of crushed pineapple and the luscious Buttermilk Glaze makes this truly the Best Carrot Cake.

Step-by-Step Video: Best Carrot Cake Ever

Recipe: Hummingbird Cake

This ultimate recipe is the most requested in Southern Living magazine history and frequents covered dish dinners all across the South, always receiving rave reviews.