20 Easy Cake Recipes

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.

20 easy cake recipes for birthdays, holidays, and Tuesday nights — from one-bowl chocolate cake to no-bake icebox cake.

Every baker needs a short list of cakes they can make without thinking too hard. Not the fondant-covered wedding kind — the kind you bake on a Saturday because someone deserves cake. This is that list: 20 reliable, genuinely easy cakes covering every occasion and every craving.

You’ll find one-bowl wonders, no-bake options, timeless classics, and a few with a twist. Each one is chosen because real home bakers make it again and again. Pick your occasion, pick your flavor, and preheat the oven.

The Best Easy Cake Recipes to Try

1. One-Bowl Chocolate Cake

The weeknight hero: cocoa, hot coffee, and one bowl, baked into a deeply chocolatey cake with a tender crumb. The coffee doesn’t make it taste like coffee — it just makes the chocolate taste more like chocolate. Frost with simple buttercream or eat it warm, plain.

2. Classic Vanilla Cake

The birthday standard, done right: buttery, tender, with real vanilla bean flavor in every bite. Room-temperature ingredients are the whole secret — cold eggs and butter make a dense, uneven crumb. This is the recipe to memorize.

3. Strawberry Cake

Fresh strawberries baked right into the batter and whipped into the frosting for double the berry flavor. Our Best Strawberry Cake uses real fruit, not a boxed mix, and the difference is immediate. Peak strawberry season only makes it better.

4. Carrot Cake

Warmly spiced, studded with nuts and raisins if you like them, and crowned with tangy cream cheese frosting. Our Best Carrot Cake Recipe stays moist for days — it might be better on day two. An Easter classic that earns its place year-round.

5. Red Velvet Cake

That dramatic crimson crumb with a whisper of cocoa, layered with cream cheese frosting. Our Best Red Velvet Cake gets its color and its signature tang from the buttermilk-vinegar reaction. Made for Valentine’s Day, welcome anywhere.

6. Lemon Drizzle Cake

Bright, sunny, and impossible to eat just one slice of. The lemon syrup soaked in while warm keeps every bite moist and punchy. This is the cake you bring when you don’t know what people like — everyone likes this.

7. Coconut Cake

Layers of coconut-scented cake with fluffy frosting and a snowfall of shredded coconut. A Southern classic that tastes like a celebration. Toast the coconut on top for color and a little extra flavor.

8. Coffee Cake

Technically a breakfast cake, practically an anytime cake: buttery crumb with a cinnamon-streusel ribbon through the middle. No coffee in the cake — it’s called coffee cake because it goes with coffee. Make it for brunch and watch it vanish.

9. Pound Cake

The original ratio cake — a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs, and flour — baked into dense, golden, endlessly versatile slices. Serve it plain, with berries and cream, or grilled with peaches in summer. It keeps for days and freezes perfectly.

10. Angel Food Cake

Feather-light and fat-free, made from whipped egg whites and almost no flour. The tube pan isn’t optional — the cake needs the center tube and the ungreased sides to climb. Serve with macerated strawberries for the classic pairing.

11. Banana Cake

Like banana bread’s fancier sibling: the same overripe-banana flavor in a tender layer cake with cream cheese frosting. Our Best Banana Bread method works here too — the blacker the bananas, the better the cake.

12. Spice Cake

Cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice in a moist, autumnal crumb with brown sugar frosting. This is the cake that makes the whole house smell like October. A strong cup of coffee alongside is close to mandatory.

13. Funfetti Cake

Vanilla cake loaded with rainbow sprinkles, because sometimes joy is the whole point. Use jimmies, not nonpareils — the round ones bleed color into the batter. The birthday cake for people who refuse to grow up.

14. German Chocolate Cake

Not actually German — named for Samuel German, who developed the chocolate. Mild chocolate layers with that iconic coconut-pecan frosting that’s really more of a topping. Rich, distinctive, and worth the effort.

15. Tres Leches Cake

A sponge cake soaked in three milks until it’s impossibly moist, topped with whipped cream and cinnamon. Serve it ice cold straight from the fridge. It sounds like too much milk; it is exactly the right amount of milk.

16. Olive Oil Cake

Italian-style, impossibly moist, with a fruity olive oil flavor and a crackly sugar top. One bowl, no butter to soften, no layers to stack. Serve with citrus segments or just a dusting of powdered sugar.

17. Hummingbird Cake

Banana, pineapple, and pecans in a spiced Southern layer cake with cream cheese frosting. It’s like carrot cake’s tropical cousin — sweet, moist, and gone fast. Toast the pecans first; it takes five minutes and changes everything.

18. Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Caramelized pineapple rings and cherries baked under a buttery cake, flipped to reveal that glossy top. Retro in the best way. Serve warm — the caramel is at its best in the first hour out of the oven.

19. Marble Cake

Vanilla and chocolate batters swirled together for the indecisive among us. The trick is fewer swirls than you think — three or four passes with a knife gives defined ribbons instead of muddy brown. Kids love the surprise inside.

20. Icebox Cake

The no-bake miracle: chocolate wafer cookies layered with whipped cream, chilled overnight until the cookies soften into cake-like layers. Zero oven time, maximum retro charm. Make it the night before — patience is the only ingredient it demands.

Start with the occasion: birthday means vanilla or funfetti, holiday means spice or red velvet, Tuesday means one-bowl chocolate. Once you’ve made two or three from this list, you’ll have your own short list — and that’s the whole point.

You May Also Like

• 30 Easy Baking Recipes – More from-scratch bakes beyond cake.
• Best Strawberry Cake – Our full recipe for the fresh-berry favorite.
• 30 Easy Dessert Recipes – The full dessert collection for every sweet tooth.