10 Genius Mother's Day Cake Recipes for Mom

Every week—often with your help—Food52's Creative Director Kristen Miglore is unearthing recipes that are nothing short of genius. Today: 10 cakes, each with the Genius seal of approval, just in time to save Mother's Day.

Still need a present for Mother's Day? Go bake her a cake. And for you moms out there—do you suspect your loved ones are running a little behind this year? Save them: request a cake.

Some of my happiest, most successful mom-oriented days involved baking my mother's favorite chocolate cake with a cream cheese ribbon—sometimes with her help, sometimes stumbling along on my own. I think she liked it easily as much as the awkward poems and framed photos, though I doubt she'd ever tell.

I've rounded up some of the greatest cakes from the Genius Recipes column below, plus a few other favorites from around Food52. But what I really want to know is: what genius cake will you bake for your mother?

Amanda Hesser's Chocolate Dump-It Cake

"My mother has many specialties, but her Chocolate Dump-It Cake is most beloved in my family," Amanda writes. "She kept this cake in the fridge, and it is sublime even when cold. I wrote about this cake in my second book, Cooking for Mr. Latte, but wanted to celebrate it here on Food52, as well."

Maialino's Olive Oil Cake

Olive oil cake at its best has a crackling crust and an aromatic oil-rich middle, which, if it held any more moisture, would be pudding. Pulling this off should be easy—there aren't even egg whites to whip and fold, or butter to cream—but it isn't always. This one, however, is perfect, and will ruin you for all others.

aargersi's Coconut Tres Leches

"I started making tres leches because it is my neighbor's favorite thing and I like her," says aargersi. "I started with Martha Stewart's recipe which is a great jumping off point—but it is not as juicy as a traditional tres leches, which you will find resting in a shallow lake of sweet milk. So I adjusted up for that, and here I have swapped in some coconut, some lime (because it is one of coconut's BFFs) and I used Tahitian vanilla which is a bit more floral than Mexican (but if you can't find it, go with whatcha got). It's rich and milky and coconutty and good. Ask the neighbors."

Margaret Fox's Amazon Cake

Meet your new go-to birthday cake, bake sale cake, dinner party cake, late night snack cake—for when the fridge is at its barest and you need chocolate cake now. (It's also vegan and parve and dirt cheap, but you wouldn't know unless we told you.) This isn't not the richest, most chocolatey cake—if you like, you can amp up the chocolate by swapping in coffee for the water, or adding more cocoa. But you don't need to. It's a different animal: light, delicately strung together with cocoa, and not terribly sweet.

Lindsay-Jean Hard's Banana Cake with Penuche Frosting 

"I think of this as my grandmother's recipe," Lindsay-Jean writes, "but it's actually her mother's or her mother-in-law's...either way, it was a special cake that she would make for my father's birthday, as it's his favorite cake (and mine too). It's a simple seeming cake (no vanilla?! not a spice to be found?!), but it's like your favorite banana bread, only lighter and fluffier, and the frosting truly makes this cake."

Roberta's Parsley Cake

If we can put rosemary in our frozen yogurt and thyme in our cookies, there's nothing stopping parsley from treading over the line. It's festive and herb-forward, but also a bright spot at the end of a dense, salty meal.

Nigella Lawson's Dense Chocolate Loaf Cake

 

On creating this cake, Nigella Lawson explains, "I remember very strongly wanting to create what we call a loaf cake—and what is generally called a pound cake Stateside—that had a richness and squidginess of texture that this form of cake normally doesn't major in." And she did.

Cory Schreiber & Julie Richardson's Rhubarb Buckle With Ginger Crumb

There's a secret ingredient in here: ginger (times two). Fiery candied ginger is minced up in the crumb topping, and ground ginger in the cake too—just enough to give it a warm, flirty je ne sais quoi that doesn't try to shout over the rhubarb.

Nigel Slater's Extremely Moist Chocolate Beet Cake

Step aside, red velvet. It just so happens that the deep pink earthiness of a beet is surprisingly well suited for bittersweet chocolate. Crushed beets are also an inexpensive way to make a cake achingly moist, nearly molten. And you don't need all that red food coloring after all.

SML Office's Louisa's Cake

"Louisa is a family friend, gardener and chef from Castellina in Chianti, Italy, where we gather several times a year," recipe author Jennifer Wagner writes. "She cooks everything from memory and threw this together one night last spring. When we pressed her for the recipe she hastily rattled some ingredients off and we scrambled to write it all down on a napkin. Along with my husband and children, we've tested this cake about 6 times, and friends are constantly asking for the recipe."

Got a genius recipe to share -- from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected].

Photos by James Ransom, except Louisa's Cake by Sarah Shatz