10,000 making recipes

Elodie's chocolate cake is a French-style dense bake with 10 oz bittersweet chocolate and just 5 tablespoons of flour - intensely fudgy, rich, and make-ahead friendly.

A dump-and-bake strawberry cake with marshmallows, cake mix, Jello powder, and frozen strawberries layered in a pan with zero mixing. The oven does all the work. Sticky, gooey, and ridiculously easy.

Appalachian stack cake is a 10-layer mountain heirloom: molasses-spice cookie layers pressed together with dried apple filling. Best after three days of resting.

Orange liqueur cake with chopped dates, pecans, and buttermilk batter, soaked in a Grand Marnier orange syrup. The fruitcake alternative for people who claim to hate fruitcake.

Poor Man's Cake: a Depression-era boiled raisin cake spiced with cinnamon, cloves and allspice. No eggs, no milk, no butter. Just pantry basics, lard and the magic of plumped raisins.

Terry's turtle cake layers chocolate cake with melted caramel, chocolate chips, and pecans, then tops with more batter for a gooey caramel center. A church potluck classic on a doctored cake mix base.

Light spiced apple cake with nutmeg and ginger, topped with cinnamon-walnut sugar before baking. Cut into rectangles and serve warm or at room temperature for coffee cake perfection.

Reese's peanut butter cake stacks two peanut-butter-and-brown-sugar layers with a cream cheese peanut butter filling and a warm pour-over chocolate glaze. The candy bar in cake form.

Pineapple dream cake made with pineapple juice in the batter and topped with a whipped shortening frosting folded with cooked pineapple. A fluffy, tropical two-layer cake.

Mexican baked beans, dried white beans baked low and slow in a tomato sauce with jalapenos, bell pepper, onion, chili powder, cumin, and a touch of molasses. Vegetarian, dairy-free, deeply spiced.

Flourless chocolate cake with bittersweet chocolate, ground almonds, espresso and brandy. A naturally gluten-free torte that's dense, fudgy, and dinner-party ready.

Lavender angel food cake with 12 egg whites beaten to stiff peaks and dried lavender folded into the batter. Light, fragrant, and fat-free. Ready in about an hour.

A light sponge cake rolled with whipped cream, applesauce, and walnuts for an elegant holiday dessert that looks impressive but comes together quickly.

German chocolate cake layered with gooey melted caramels, chopped pecans, and chocolate chips between two layers of batter. A semi-homemade turtle cake that's sinfully rich and ridiculously easy to make.

Rich spiced cake with cookie-crisp edges and a moist, chewy center loaded with apples, nuts, and brandy. Stiff dough bakes into bars with crunchy tops and brownie-soft middles.

Mix this vanilla crazy cake right in the baking pan with no butter, no mixer, and minimal cleanup. Pecans add crunch and swirled chocolate chips on top finish it off.