You don’t need to be a pastry chef to bake the perfect cake.

Fortunately, a homemade cake doesn’t have to be daunting.

Each recipe was hand-selected to be simple and relatively painless.

Glazed Lemon Pound Cake

Photo: José Picayo

You’ll want to go for unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder rather than standard to intensify the chocolaty flavor.

Easy Ice Cream Cake

The secret to this astonishingly simple four-ingredient dessert?

Use ice cream sandwiches to build your cake.

DOUBLE-CHOCOLATE-ZUCCHINI-CAKE

Greg Dupree, Prop Stylist: Julia Bayless, Food Stylist: Emily Nabors Hall

Slow Cooker Chocolate Pudding Cake

This dump cake is incredibly straightforward.

Simply drop in the ingredients, set the slow cooker, and forget about it for three hours.

The crunchy streusel topping ties the entire dish together and makes this dinner party-worthy.

The secret to this astonishingly simple four-ingredient dessert? Using ice cream sandwiches to build your cake. Get the recipe for Easy Ice Cream Cake.

Marcus Nilsson

Gingersnap Cherry Cheesecake

José Picayo

Slow-Cooker Angel Food Cake

Victor Protasio

Slow-Cooker Chocolate Pudding Cake served with ice cream on a plate.

Victor Protasio

Chocolate-Hazelnut-Swirl-Cake-0922ENT

Antonis Achilleos