16 Homemade Cake Recipes From Scratch

While we love the ease and convenience of using boxed cake mixes to make certain recipes (check out these awesome cake mix recipes for ideas), putting the extra effort in to go homemade is totally worth it.

In fact, you’d be surprised at how much better a from-scratch cake can taste vs. a box mix cake. You may also be surprised at how easy some cake recipes from scratch can actually be. You don’t need to be an expert to make a homemade cake!

To prove it, we’ve gathered 16 of our favorite scratch cake recipes, all in one place. Some of them are directly from our cake recipe archives, and some are ones we found around the web. Check them out and enjoy:

Best Homemade Cake Recipes

Whether you’re trying to show off to your friends with an impressive homemade cake, trying to test your baking skills, or something else, these easy cake recipes from scratch are perfect to start with.

As you’ll see below, we’ve gathered recipes of all different flavors, textures, difficulty, and technique. Be sure to bookmark this page or pin it on Pinterest so you can come back when you want to try a new recipe!

1. Easy Chocolate Cake Recipe

We had to start it off with a classic chocolate cake! This isn’t just any old chocolate cake recipe though – it’s a moist, delicious, and surprisingly easy cake with super simple ingredients.

And, it’s so tasty you can enjoy it without any toppings or frosting at all (still, we enjoy a yummy chocolate buttercream frosting on top).

2. Cream Cheese Pound Cake Recipe

We’re not lying when we say this is the best cream cheese pound cake you’ll ever try. It’s moist, dense, soft, flavorful, and has a nice sweet crust that’s so tasty!

With custom toppings like whipped cream or fruit, it gets even better. Plus, it freezes well too!

3. Easy Hot Fudge Pudding Cake

If you like a gooey, chocolatey cake, you’ll love this hot fudge pudding cake. It’s another one with simple ingredients that translate into explosive flavor!

Serve this cake with some homemade vanilla ice cream for a dessert that will knock your socks off. Seriously.

4. Chocolate Wacky Cake (No Eggs, No Butter, No Milk)

This may be one of the easiest cake recipes from scratch in the entire world. I really don’t know if it could get any easier. And even though this cake is missing eggs, butter, and milk, it’s still super delicious and moist!

Oh, and guess what? You can mix all of the ingredients for this cake right in the cake pan itself, so cleanup is a breeze! Could it get any better?

5. Carrot Cake Roll

If you love carrot cake, this is a really good swiss roll-like variation. It’s one of our favorite Easter treat recipes because the presentation and flavor are both so perfect.

Don’t be intimidated by this one though, getting it rolled up is actually pretty simple! All it takes is a bit of patience.

6. Luxurious Red Velvet Cake Roll

While we’re on the topic of cake rolls, here’s another one that will knock your socks off! It’s a tasty red velvet cake with a luxurious white chocolate cream cheese filling, and let me just tell you now: the filling, along with the velvety cake, is incredible.

Related: 30 Cute Valentine’s Day Recipes You’ll Love

7. Overnight Coffee Cake

While many coffee cakes can turn out quite dry, this is not one of them. It’s moist and delicious with a simple streusel topping to give it a crispy, sweet buttery flavor.

It’s pretty impressive how far in advance you can prepare this sucker too. If you wanted, you could make it up to a month in advance by freezing it! No thawing necessary either!

8. Triple Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Yes, you read that right. Triple chocolate. This cake doesn’t mess around! It’s a chocolate cake with chocolate chips AND a chocolate ganache topping. And then one secret ingredient: zucchini!

Although the zucchini in this cake doesn’t make it all that much healthier, it’s nice knowing there’s at least a bit of vegetable in there 😉 Best of all, you can’t even taste it so this is still very kid-friendly!

9. Basic Cheesecake

Cheesecake is a great spring/summer cake, especially with some fresh berries on top! We typically use strawberries for our homemade cheesecake but you can use any of your favorite fruits.

For the base, the ingredients and instructions for this cheesecake are all pretty simple. If you’ve never made one from scratch before, this is the recipe to start with!

10. Carrot Cake Cheesecake

Ok, we’ve shown you cheesecake and carrot cake recipes from scratch, now it’s time to combine the two. You may be surprised at how well these flavors go together!

11. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Here’s another amazing cheesecake combination, this time with chocolate peanut butter. This one is so rich my mouth is watering just thinking about it!

12. Chocolate Texas Sheet Cake

If you’re looking for a thin cake that still packs a punch, the texas sheet cake is an easy choice. It’s rich but not too filling, and it has a thin sort of hardened layer of tasty chocolate frosting on top.

Get the full recipes from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe.

13. Moist White Cake

We had to include a white cake on this list of cake recipes from scratch as it’s suitable for almost any occasion. Birthdays, weddings, baby showers, you name it.

This white cake recipe checks all the boxes too. It has a moist, soft texture, it’s quite simple to make, and it’s covered in a delicious buttercream frosting.

Get the full recipes from I Scream for Buttercream.

14. Coconut Cake

Here’s one of the more unique homemade cake recipes on this list. It’s a coconut cake with a cream cheese frosting, and there are even coconut flakes on the top and sides to round everything out. Needless to say, if you love coconut, you’ll love this cake!

Get the full recipe from Shugary Sweets.

15. White Almond Sour Cream Cake

Here’s another moist white cake recipe, but this time with a hint of almond flavor. It’s also beautifully layered, as you can see from the photo above. Amazingly, it only takes 10 minutes to prep this beautiful piece of from-scratch cake art!

Get the full recipe from Baking a Moment.

16. Lemon Blueberry Crumb Cake

One of my favorite things about this recipe is its versatility. Being that it’s a crumb cake, it’s quick and easy to make, and it’s on the healthier side so you can enjoy it for breakfast, lunch, or as a dessert. I really like it with a hot drink!

Final Thoughts

Are you ready to fully ditch the box mixes now that you’ve witnessed some of our favorite cake recipes from scratch? Truth is, it’s really not much harder to bake a cake from scratch, but the difference in flavor and texture is HUGE.

All I’m saying is, once you bake from scratch, you’ll never want to go back.

If you’re still feeling a bit intimidated, pick one of the easier recipes above (or the one that looks best to you) and just give it a shot! Even if you don’t nail it the first time around I guarantee you it will be a fun process and a great learning experience.

By the way, if you do give any of these delicious homemade cake recipes a try, let us know how it goes! Be sure to come back and leave a comment – or leave one right now and let us know which recipe you’re planning on trying!

More Dessert Recipes:

• How to Freeze Cookie Dough (+ Our Favorite Recipe)
• Lemonies
• The Next Best Thing To Robert Redford
• The Best Sour Cream Sugar Cookies
• Chocolate Kitchenaid Ice Cream Recipe