The Pink Cake: Raspberry-tinted frosting holding together three layers of chocolate cake (page 121, and following page). If it’s pink, it’s pretty. And if it’s pink and chocolate, it’s divine. After all, pink does rule.

The Pink Cake is one of many in Vintage Cakes: Timeless Recipes for Cupcakes, Flips, Rolls, Layer, Angel, Bundt, Chiffon, and Icebox Cakes for Today’s Sweet Tooth by Julie Richardson. Recipe-wise, the word “vintage” occasionally translates into musty or time-beaten (read: aged) formulas in need of revamping, texture or flavor-wise, or better left in the past. Not so in Vintage Cakes, as Richardson takes the reader-baker through a journey into “Hasty Cakes,” “Everyday Cakes,” “Little Cakes and Light Cakes,” Flips and Rolls,” “Layer Cakes,” “Party Cakes,” and the requisite finishes, “Fillings, Frostings, and Icings.” A notable, recognizable confection, Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (page 94, and following page), is offered alongside an interesting rendition of Cassata Cake (page 108, and following page)–two examples that identify the range of recipes.

In all, Vintage Cakes is a frosted trip into Dessert Land (past and, frequently, present).