The Cake Everyone Was Obsessed With The Year You Were Born

Back in the 1960s, Pink Champagne Cake was dubbed the "elite of party cakes," with its light, airy texture (thanks to several egg whites and 3/4 of a cup of Champagne). It remains one of the Los Angeles Times's most-requested recipes. 

Try a riff on the trend with these Strawberry Chapagne Cupcakes from Delish.

Ella Helfrich may not have won the grand-prize in the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-off (she nabbed second), but she launched a national obsession with her decadent, fudge-filled Tunnel of Fudge Cake. More than 200,000 letters were sent to the Dough Boy's HQ, all requesting the recipe — and where they could find a Bundt pan to make it their own.

Get the recipe from Pillsbury.

That famous line from Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In got immortalized in cake shortly after Richard Nixon uttered the line while campaigning for prez, writes Anne Byrn in American Cake. The dessert's a sour cream coffee cake, based on a cake mix, and was such a hit that Duncan Hines ran the recipe on the back of the box for years. 

Get the recipe from Duncan Hines.

Watergate Cake, like its close cousin, Watergate Salad, proved that in the '70s, people loved topical desserts — and associating gobs of pistachio with then-president Richard Nixon. The recipe, which calls for pistachio pudding mix, was so popular Giant Foods had a hard time keeping the product on shelves. (YouTube user Nocolorlinesglobal demos exactly how to make it here.)

Get the recipe from FoodTimeline.org.

Ah, rum. It's not just for tiki drinks and Jack Sparrow jokes. The spirit's been added to cakes since the 1800s, but it really took off in the late '70s, when Bacardi's president had his team create and market a recipe for the cake using 6 ounces of dark rum. 

Get the recipe from Better Recipes.

This dense chocolate cake, covered in a layer of fudge frosting, is so beloved it was actually added to Wellesley College's centennial time capsule in 1981, so future generations know how to make something other than Hot Pockets and Soylent Green, or whatever's en vogue 100 years from now. Its inclusion is also a subtle jab at the older administration; Wellesley's founder was against snacking and sweets, so students would secretly make fudge, melting chocolate and butter on Bunsen burners borrowed from the chem lab, according to American Cake. The frosting's a nod to those rebellious days.

Get the recipe from Kraft.

Wanna know when you've truly made it? When you have not one but two cakes vying to be named after you. These days, many people know a layered cheesecake and chocolate pudding treat by that name (or Fat Man's Delight, oddly enough), but in the early '80s, Robert Redford Cake meant Nutella on crack. The chocolate-hazelnut cake was coated in a rich, chocolate ganache, and American Cake states it's the treat the actor was served while dining at Hisae's restaurant in New York.

Get the recipe from the The New York Times. 

Susan Porubcan of Jefferson, Wisconsin, took home the grand prize at the 1984 Pillsbury Bake-Off for her Country Apple Coffee Cake, which involved covering sliced apples with biscuit dough and a whiskey-cinnamon-brown sugar mixture, then baking and topping it with a vanilla glaze. Here's her recipe.

For a caramel apple take, try this bubble-up bake from Delish.

Continuing the chocoholic '80s trend is the Chocolate Praline Layer Cake, which won the grand prize in the Pillsbury Bake-Off in '88. For good reason: It tricks out a Devil's Food Cake mix with whipping cream, brown sugar and chopped pecans, and the whole thing's topped with a fluffy whipped cream frosting, chocolate curls and more pecans. We're nuts about it.

Get the recipe from Pillsbury.

Carrie Bradshaw started a cultural phenomenon — and the whole cupcakery trend, to some degree — after she discussed her relationship woes over one of Magnolia's famous, pink-frosted vanilla cupcakes during season three. The show may be long over, but the treats are every bit as delish.

Learn how to master Magnolia's signature swirl here.