Food

Decadent Cakes For All Occasions

September 6, 2009

15 luscious versions of our favorite dessert, from peanut butter and chocolate to coconut and caramel.

Very Moist Chocolate Layer Cake — Three velvety layers sandwiched with thick dark chocolate icing make a decadent, crowd-pleasing dessert.Todd Coleman

Caramel Cake — The recipe for this butter cake draped in caramel fudge icing is based on a cake originally made by Louise Hodges, a home cook from Carmack, Mississippi.Todd Coleman

Smith Island Cake — Our recipe for this towering dessert features eight layers of buttery yellow cake with creamy chocolate-fudge icing.Landon Nordeman

Red Velvet Cake — Though cream cheese frosting is typically used nowadays on red velvet cake, classic whipped cream frosting makes for a more balanced sweetness.Todd Coleman

This cake uses chocolate four ways: ganache (chocolate cream frosting), chocolate cake layers, shavings, and cocoa.Landon Nordeman

Hummingbird Cake — Honoring the legacy of the Southern cook Edna Lewis, this luscious, fruit-and-nut-studded layer cake is served in Atlanta's Watershed restaurant. We included the recipe online to accompany Christiane Lauterbach's feature about the restaurant, which ran in our April 2009 issue.Andre Baranowski

Heaven And Hell Cake — This rich, multilayered dessert of angel food and devil's food cake, peanut butter mousse, and milk chocolate ganache should be frozen before icing is added and refrigerated before it's sliced.Matt Taylor-Gross

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