The four easiest cakes that anyone can make

Feb 27, 2025

Whoever said that anyone can bake hasn’t been in the kitchen with me when I’ve been tasked with making anything more complicated than a Victoria sponge cake. Discarded batter in the sink and sunken, cracked sponges in the bin, the only tiers that make an appearance are not the sort you see on Bake Off, which kicked off again last month.

Baking does not come naturally to me. As much as I love eating Genovese sponges, profiterole towers and fruit-laden savarins, I do not like making them. I relish the flair and experimentation that characterises cooking but when it comes to technical baking there is no wiggle room, no space for a gung-ho “chuck it in and let’s see what happens” attitude. As the age-old saying goes, cooking is an art, baking is a science. Or often, in my case, a catastrophe.

But that is not to say I cannot bake. I know the basics and I am good at them: Victoria sponge, banana bread, a simple chocolate cake. It’s when tempering, lamination and bain-maries get involved that I start to sweat. Although I don’t believe the myth that you need cold hands to bake — I know successful pastry chefs who have admitted to having warm, clammy hands.

However, the handful of cakes I have in my repertoire are bakes that I can confidently say I could make with my eyes closed (not literally; precision is still important in baking). Nothing too fancy — no Italian meringues or piping. These are for people who don’t think they can bake.

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The first is Mary Berry’s all-in-one-bowl recipe for a Victoria sponge. She is of the party that you don’t need to cream the butter and sugar first, then add the eggs, followed by the flour. She doesn’t even sieve the flour, something that her fellow celebrity baker Lily Vanilli, who runs the cult bakery of the same name in east London, also believes.

Nigella’s flourless chocolate orange cake is rich and moist and feels luxurious despite the fact it is so simple to make. It’s what I bring out for birthdays or as a cosy dinner party dessert. Don’t be put off by the first stage, which calls for the oranges to be simmered for two hours. You can just leave them to bubble and enjoy the aroma.

My favourite cake recipe is from my mum, Claire. It’s her coffee and walnut cake. She could have found it in the back of a supermarket magazine yonks ago for all I care, but among my family and friends it’s as impressive as a croquembouche.

I’ve not lived in the same country as my siblings for the best part of a decade. My sister is in the States with her family and my brother is in the Middle East. We all know how to make Mum’s coffee and walnut cake off by heart. It’s a nut-studded sponge slathered in a thick layer of coffee butter icing and topped with crushed walnuts. It doesn’t last more than three days in my house — and I live alone. I think Mum taught it to us because she got so fed up with requests to make it whenever we were visiting — although I know for a fact she has an emergency supply of sponges in the freezer in case one of us decides to make a last-minute trip home.

It was Mum who taught me the basics of baking, in the old-school imperial fashion. Growing up, lessons with her would always start with weighing the eggs, then greasing her slightly worse-for-wear cake tins with butter (never greaseproof paper). Her rules to bake were always straightforward: don’t overmix the batter otherwise it will become too foamy, form a crust in the oven and then collapse. Don’t try to make your sponges too thick — best to make two thin ones just an inch or two high rather than try and slice one thick sponge in half. Always leave the sponges to cool for a few minutes before turning them out. Never attempt to put butter icing on a cake until it’s totally cooled.

For the next few weeks, enthused bakers will be inspired to put on their aprons, get their Kenwood mixer out and start baking. I know I’d be more likely to get a finger pointing me to the tent door than a Hollywood handshake. Don’t be put off — anyone can make these recipes.

You will need a loaf tin

• 50g walnuts, roughly chopped, plus extra for topping• 150g self-raising flour• ½ tsp baking powder• ½ tsp salt• 100g caster sugar• 100g butter• 2 eggs• 1 tbsp instant coffee, powder is best • 3 tbsp milk

• 85g unsalted butter• 60g icing sugar • 1 tsp instant coffee powder

1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas 6.2. Mix the flour with the baking powder, then add all the ingredients for the cake into a bowl and mix together. Beat at a high speed for 1 min.3. Bake in a loaf tin with a tin liner for 45 min or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.4. For the icing, mix together the butter with half the icing sugar and then add the rest to taste. Dissolve the instant coffee powder with a tiny bit of hot water. Stir this in. Once the cake has cooled, add the buttercream icing and a sprinkle of walnuts.

• 225g margarine• 225g caster sugar• 225g self-raising flour• 1 tsp baking powder• 4 large eggs

1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas 6. Grease two 20cm sandwich tins. In a mixing bowl measure the margarine, sugar, eggs, flour and baking powder. Beat thoroughly until you have a smooth texture.2. Divide between the cake tins and place in the oven for 25-30 min. 3. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for several minutes. Carefully turn out the sponges. Once they have completely cooled, fill with butter icing and jam.

• 1 large or 2 small thin-skinned oranges, approx 375g total weight (I used Valencia)• 6 eggs• 1 heaped tsp baking powder• ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda• 200g ground almonds• 250g caster sugar• 50g good-quality unsweetened cocoa• Orange peel for decoration

1. Place the oranges in a pan of cold water and simmer for 2 hours or until soft. Drain and, when cool enough to handle, cut the oranges in half and remove any pips. Scrape out the flesh and juice into a bowl. Then (and I diverge from Lawson here), if you can be bothered, scrape out as much pith as you can from the orange shells. Place the scraped orange shells in with the orange flesh. Either pulp using a blender/food processor or chop the fruit finely. Allow the fruit to cool completely.2. Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas 6. Butter and line a springform tin if you have one. We don’t so I just used a regular cake tin and was able to remove the cake successfully. However, make sure the tin you use is fairly deep — one about 20-23cm wide will be about right — because the cake batter spilt out over the top of mine during baking, which was nearly disastrous.3. You can put the batter together either in a food processor or by hand. It’s easy enough to do by hand: simply stir together the eggs, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, almonds, sugar, cocoa and pulped fruit until well blended. Scrape into the cake tin and bake for an hour, by which time a cake tester should come out fairly clean. Check the cake after 45 min; depending on your oven, you may need to cover it with foil to prevent burning on top.4. Leave the cake to cool in the tin, on a cooling rack. When cold, remove from the tin. It looks beautiful decorated with long fine strips of orange zest piled on top.

• 175g butter, softened, plus extra to grease the tin• 175g caster sugar• Zest of 2 lemons • 3 medium eggs• 175g self-raising flour• ¼ tsp baking powder• Pinch of salt• 2 tbsp milk• Juice of 1 lemon • 2 tbsp granulated sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan/gas 6. Grease and line a 1kg loaf tin with baking paper.2. In a large bowl beat together the butter, sugar and zest, using a handheld electric whisk, until the mixture is very light and fluffy.3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix until smoothly combined. Add just enough milk to achieve a dropping consistency.4. Spoon the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and gently smooth the surface to level it. Bake for 45-50 min or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.5. Once you’ve removed the cake from the oven, make the drizzle topping. Mix together the lemon juice and sugar in a small jug. While the cake is still warm, use a cocktail stick to prick holes all over the top of the cake then trickle over the lemon drizzle. Leave to cool completely in the tin before removing.