Cake Flour

This simple white cake has a lemon curd filling and glaze. Big cakes like this are typical special-occasion desserts in the South.

Vary this yellow cake according to your mood and what's available. For instance, add sliced and lightly sugared fruit on the top of the unbaked batter, or top it with crushed nuts before baking, or split the baked and cooled cake to spread it with a layer of preserves, then dust it with powdered sugar.

This variation on the classic Irish apple cake has a top and bottom crust made from a biscuit-like dough. You can cut this cake into wedges or dish it out with a spoon like a cobbler.

Watch everyone’s eyes open wide when you serve this big four-layer cake.

Maple syrup, brown sugar and cinnamon enhance this easy-to-make cake.

This impressive dessert features two classic components: the buttery sponge cake known as genoise and the rich frosting known as ganache. Making the genoise and syrup ahead eliminates last-minute fuss. Any leftover ganache can be chilled, rolled into balls and presented as another classic: truffles.

It's unusual to butter and flour the pan when making a chiffon cake, but we liked the delicate crust that resulted. Because we did it this way, the cake must be cooled, inverted, on a rack, not on a bottle (the usual procedure for chiffons), or it will fall right out of the pan! Don't be tempted to substitute lemon juice for orange juice in the recipe, as the cake will not be as tender.

Chocolate cake, chocolate ganache, and chocolate mousse team up with fruit in this incredible dessert. Begin making the cake one day ahead. Enjoy the extra mousse later.

Similar to zuppa inglese (an Italian trifle), this impressive dessert layers an amaretti-and-cream filling and orange segments between syrup-soaked sponge cake. Many of the components can be made ahead; start with the filling so that it can chill overnight.

To many people living in the middle of the country, celebration cakes must be chocolate cakes — especially German chocolate cakes. This one embellishes the tradition, using unsweetened chocolate instead of sweet chocolate, a luscious caramel-coconut filling between the layers and lots of creamy chocolate frosting. (By the way, German chocolate cakes have nothing to do with the immigrants who settled in the heartland; the name actually comes from the fact that the cakes were first made with Baker's brand German's sweet baking chocolate.)