20 Fresh and Colorful Cake Recipes for Summer

This lemon cake is a great single-portion dessert. It is simple but delicious, especially with fresh fruits. Use almond milk if you cannot handle dairy products. Add strawberries, blueberries, and lemon wedges as the toppings. You can replace regular flour with the gluten-free one.

Rhubarb’s sweetness and crunchiness are ideal for upside-down cake. You can add lemon zest to this quick summer cake. The upside-down baking method means you get an improved flavor from the caramelized rhubarb layer.

This cake version of strawberry shortcake combines mascarpone cheese, fresh strawberries, and several layers of cake. It looks beautiful and rich, with a refreshing hint from the strawberries. Bake the cake on the same day of consumption so the mascarpone doesn’t break.

This white cake has a beautiful combination of frosting cream, seasonal fruit compote, and fresh fruit topping. The batter is eggless, perfect for people with allergies. The drip effect is achieved with yellow chocolate ganache, but you can pick other colors.

Many summer cakes with fruit include breakfast cakes. This recipe uses grated green apples, cinnamon, and walnuts to create the ultimate breakfast cake. Pair this cake with a homemade latte or your favorite breakfast tea.

Combine citrusy delight and Italian flavor in a lemon tiramisu. Instead of ladyfingers, you can use angel food cake as the base (homemade or store-bought). Don't forget to keep the mascarpone in the fridge until 30 minutes before serving.

This recipe is a twist of a traditional Bakewell cake (or pudding). The almonds are mixed into the batter, which blends better with cherry jam. Lemon icing cream and whole cherries on top make the cake more delightful.

Blending pistachio gives this cake a delicious, nutty flavor. The cake tastes great when paired with cream frosting and cut strawberries. You can experiment with sugar glaze or chocolate ganache instead of cream.

A poke cake is one of the best summer dessert recipes. The cake’s pudding filling gives a surprise in every bite. This recipe uses toasted coconut and strawberries to garnish the cake. This recipe uses vanilla-flavored pudding, but you can experiment with other flavors such as strawberry or chocolate.

This zucchini bread is perfect to insert vegetables for picky eaters. The recipe uses gluten-free flour and flax eggs, which make it a great vegan treat. Banana and dark chocolate make this bread delicious. Instead of a baking oven, you can make it with an instant pot.

The combination of cream and strawberry jam makes this simple roll cake a great dessert. Whipped cream and strawberries are the perfect garnish for the cake. You can replace the strawberries with any favorite fruits, like peaches or blueberries.

Blueberry buckle is one of the most unique summer treats, combining coffee cake and blueberry muffin. The cake is a little dense but still moist. Adding lemon zest to the recipe gives the cake a subtle and refreshing tartness.

Upside-down cake is a great way to spend all the summer apricots you bought (or picked). The baking process caramelizes the apricot slices, giving them unique sweetness and flavor. The ingredients are simple, but you can add cinnamon powder for an extra twist.

If you cook something that requires a lot of yolks, use the leftover egg whites to make a pavlova. This summer pavlova uses refreshing peach slices. The moist meringue and juicy peach create a great combination. Eat immediately to prevent the toppings from ruining the meringue.

This Mexican cake recipe has fail-proof steps, preventing you from tasting too much sweetness (a common problem in tres leches cake). Poking the cake before pouring the milk mixture also creates a moist texture and fun surprise.

Unlike the typical moist cake, this blueberry and lemon curd cake has a sticky texture. It makes every bite more satisfying, but not too cloying. The recipe makes sure that the result is not too sweet.

Keto-friendly cake recipes often result in a dense or rough cake. However, this recipe results in a moist, gluten-free, and dairy-free cake. While it still uses eggs and sugar, you can make this cake for a nice dessert during a keto diet. Top it with whipped cream and fresh fruits.

This cake has lemon curd filling and raspberry buttercream frosting. The color is pretty, and the flavor combination is great. Adding fresh raspberries in the lemon curd gives extra textures and flavor in every slice. Make extra buttercream for extra touches such as creating an even surface or making swirls.

If you only have boxed cake, mix it with extra ingredients to create the fancy cake version. This recipe uses a lemon-flavored cake box mixture. Adding eggs, fresh blueberries, and vanilla pudding improve the cake flavor and texture. Frosting and fresh fruit toppings make the cake look more mouth-watering.

This cake recipe is the perfect way to use all your summer produces. The zucchini creates “green bits” in the cake batter, but they improve the aesthetic. The cake is a bit dense because of the mixture, but it still tastes moist. Be careful if you want to use different sweetener products, since adding honey instead of castor sugar ruins the texture.