“Pan d’Espanya (pan esponjado) is the iconic orange chiffon cake that has been made for generations [by] the Jews of Spain,” explains cookbook author Stella Hanan Cohen. In her community, it's traditionally made for Purim, Yom Kippur break fast, and life-cycle celebrations.

Nearly all of the written recipes from Ian Boden's grandmother Pauline were lost in a house fire. The only recipe to survive was this one for apple cake. It's made with a bit of apple cider or orange juice to help keep it moist. 

On the recipe card for this kuchen (the German word for cake) in Lindsay Gardner's family, it says "add the streusel from the Settlement Cook Book,” showing how recipes from cookbooks can become part of family traditions.

This cake from the sisters behind the celebrated tahini brand Soom, puts a spin on a classic carrot cake, giving it a nutty and rich cream cheese tahini frosting.

Cookbook author Adeena Sussman adapted this recipe from her mother’s — adding in three types of ginger: fresh, candied, and powdered. The result is a warmly spiced cake with a moist and fruity undercurrent. 

“While the origins of this cake are most likely Portuguese, it had a first wave of popularity in Italy in 1660, in Livorno," writes cookbook author Benedetta Jasmine Guetta. It can be prepared a couple of days in advance.

For Monica Haim, this date and walnut cake is part of a meal that’s deeply nostalgic and helps her connect to her family, which has its roots in Colombia and Miami.

Honey cakes like this one are typically eaten on Rosh Hashanah, when they symbolize a wish for a sweet year ahead, but in Denis Polansky’s Argentine family, it’s served at birthday parties.

Cookbook author Claudia Roden learned this Passover recipe from a friend of her mother. It has since become a family birthday favorite. It's particularly nice with a side of raspberries.

Among the things Rabbi Arielle Stein inherited from the women of her family are silk scarves from her grandmother Sara’s collection, a love of fashion, and this spice cake recipe.

Akin to monkey bread, Yonit Naftali's family calls this sweet treat crown cake. "The crown shape resembles the crown of the Torah that is paraded around the synagogue on Simchat Torah," Yonit explains.

This orange-flavored cake recipe from Russian cookbook author Anna Kharzeeva and her late grandmother is incredibly simple and only requires a few ingredients.

Lyuba Sheynin uses an old baking trick to aerate her poppyseed cake batter: a dash of baking soda and splash of vinegar and your cake will be light and fluffy!

This spicy and decadent chocolate cake from baker and chef Fany Gerson is topped with tangy tomatillo sauce. It’s kosher for Passover, but a showstopper no matter what time of year you serve it.

Disguised as a gentile, Martha Roth survived the Holocaust as a teenager by escaping from Slovakia to Hungary. After the war, she made her way to Israel with no physical tokens of her past, but strong memories of her mother's recipes, including this one.

Idan Cohen’s mother baked every Friday. His favorite cake recipe came from a grandmother he never met, who had fled Nazi Germany to live in Israel. The cake, which he bakes for his family in New York, is layered with marzipan, coffee meringue, jam, and a yeast dough.

Of all the cakes Anat Abramov’s grandmother Betty baked, Anat considers this one her signature. It’s lightly spiced with nutmeg and ginger and laced with rum. Make it with apricots in the summer, and plums in the fall.

When Rivka Hazan was growing up in Jerusalem in the 1930s and 1940s, her mother used the oven at the nearby Persian bakery when she made sweets like this one for holiday celebrations.

Ruth Abrams was a tall, magnetic, and an exacting woman, known for her cooking and baking prowess in Scranton, PA. She won a Pillsbury cake competition and was nudged to write a cookbook. This classic chocolate cake with vanilla frosting as one of her signature recipes.

Take a break from deep frying and celebrate the importance of oil in the Hanukkah story with this olive oil cake. Or, make it any other time of the year, it's a classic.

This recipe comes from cookbook author Chanie Apfelbaum’s maternal grandmother Chaya. “I still have the original card she wrote the recipe on,” Chanie says. It’s made with oil instead of butter, which makes it pareve and gives the batter a velvety smooth texture. 

This ice cream cake roll was a family favorite when Gabriella Stern’s dad Kenneth was growing up. His father, Jack made it at his bakery in Yonkers and would bring it home for birthdays.

Stern’s Bake Shop in Yonkers specialized in cakes for special occasions like weddings, birthdays, and bar mitzvahs. At home, the Stern siblings celebrated birthdays with a three-layer cake with fresh raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream.

Lynne Michel’s signature chiffon cake is inspired by the one her mother Marjorie baked for Shabbat and special occasions in South Africa. Lynne still uses her mom's vintage measuring spoons and cake tin.

In the small Romanian town where Yardena Gavish’s family is from, beating the batter of this cake until the crumb was pale in color — without the help of an electric mixer — was a point of pride. It’s traditionally served on Rosh Hashanah, but excellent with coffee or tea year round.

Honey cakes can often turn out dry, but the syrup drizzled over this one from Mitchell Davis ensures it stays moist. It's best baked the day before the holiday, which gives the cake plenty of time to soak up the syrup.

When pastry chef and baker Zoe Kanan bakes honey cake, she follows her grandmother's wisdom and bakes it a few days in advance. "The flavor does actually improve as it sits around,” Zoe says.

Baker Jessie Sheehan’s visits to her grandmother’s home were always marked by lemon sheet cake. This deeply lemon-y cake is sweet, tart, moist, and topped with a thin layer of glaze that shatters as you bite into it.

“This is one of those rare cakes that improves with age,” says bakery owner Miriam Foster. Warming spices like cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg will waft through your kitchen as it bakes.