Ina Garten Cakes You Can Have Delivered To Your Door

For anyone who loves cooking, baking, or simply dreams of a simple life out in the Hamptons, Ina Garten, also known as the Barefoot Contessa, is a household name. Her recipes are classic and beautiful, and somehow, she manages to make the simplest dishes look absolutely flawless and the most complicated dishes all too easy, always with a little help from a famous friend or the even more famous Jeffrey. Luckily for all of us, in 2021, Ina graced the internet and, eventually, kitchens around the United States with her baked goods, making them available for delivery from her Barefoot Contessa Goldbelly shop right to your front door.

Since launching the Goldbelly shop, delicious treats from Ina's East Hampton kitchen have included cookies, cakes, brownies, and even a few savory side dishes to grace the dinner table. Today, you can choose from three beautiful cakes in her Goldbelly shop: coconut, carrot, and Beatty's chocolate. Whether you're hosting a big event at home and need a perfectly constructed cake to be the sweet highlight of the evening, or you're just craving something loaded with chocolate, a cake from the Food Network queen herself may be the answer to your sugar-laced wishes. In the words of the Barefoot Contessa herself: How fabulous is that?

Read more: 30 Types Of Cake, Explained

How To Purchase And Prepare After Delivery

If you're a Goldbelly novice, ordering tasty treats from their site is quick and painless, and the Barefoot Contessa shop is no exception. Simply go to the Goldbelly website, search for the Barefoot Contessa shop, and choose what you want to order from the list of options. From there, you can choose what size cake you'd like — a 6-inch for 6-8 people or an 8-inch for 10-12 people — and whether or not you'd like to add on some birthday candles, too. Add to your cart, set up your delivery information (shipping is free), and wait for baked perfection to come to you.

When the cakes arrive, they'll come packed with dry ice, meaning they will be partially or fully frozen when you open them up. For optimal enjoyment, let them thaw out properly before cutting into them. Remove the cakes from the delivery box and pop them in the refrigerator for about 24 hours to fully thaw. About two hours before you want to serve, take the cake out of the refrigerator and let it get to room temperature. When you cut into it, the sponge will be perfectly moist and bouncy, and you'll have reached peak cake and frosting excellence.

Beatty's Chocolate Cake

Noted on the Barefoot Contessa shop page as Ina's signature chocolate cake, you'll understand why after you take a bite out of this. The sponge is perfectly moist and soft, and the flavor is rich and deep. Ina's secret ingredient? Freshly brewed coffee, which enhances the flavor of the chocolate. The cake is wrapped up beautifully in a chocolate buttercream frosting, which is light and creamy and offers a nice contrast to the cake's richness.

Everything about this cake is impressive, from the distinct four layers of cake and frosting to the overall flavor without being a sugar bomb, but the real star here is the frosting design. Despite being a cake delivered in the mail, the chocolate swirl on that buttercream frosting was absolutely flawless. At $99.95, this is a cake for a special occasion, but we promise that if you decide to invest, it will undoubtedly be the centerpiece of the event and maybe of the year.

Carrot Cake

Carrot cake is a bit of an acquired taste for some. If you're not a believer now, after taking a bite of Ina's carrot cake, you will be. The sponge is packed with slivers of grated carrot and studded with raisins and walnuts, wrapped in a creamy, dreamy mascarpone cream cheese frosting, and sprinkled with candied ginger on top. The $99.95 price tag may feel like a lot, but based on the quality of the product itself, we think it's a bargain at twice the price.

The sponge is moist and flavorful, and the hint of cinnamon within provides just the right amount of warm spice to really bring everything together. The grated carrots, raisins, and walnuts add a good texture to the sponge, providing a nice little crunch to a soft sponge. What we really love here is the mascarpone cream cheese frosting. It's rich in flavor but quite light and has just the right amount of sweetness to contrast the savory flavors in the cake. The candied ginger on top is also a nice touch, adding extra spice and flare to a cake that goes hand-in-hand with the autumn season. Enjoy a slice of this with a hot toddy and a high five for a job well done. You deserve it all.

Coconut Cake

This coconut cake embodies the Barefoot Contessa and every recipe she has ever graced us with. Not only is it an absolute classic for just about any occasion, it's downright stylish. She is beauty, she is grace, she'll put a smile on your face.

The sponge is moist and light, with the flavors of vanilla and almond coming through with impressive subtlety. The almond especially is like an added treat that we weren't expecting to find, but ended up taking the flavor above and beyond with an added layer of nutty richness. The cream cheese frosting is light and sweet, and when you get that perfect bite of almond-laced cake with sweet, vanilla-rich frosting, it's like an absolute flavor explosion in your mouth. Of course, a coconut cake isn't complete without the coating of shredded coconut over everything, which doesn't just make the cake look great but adds some nice texture for a well-rounded and delicious bite.

Again, the $99.95 price tag may be off-putting, especially considering coconut cake doesn't have the same notoriety as something more chocolatey, but we absolutely believe it's worth it. If you're not a coconut cake subscriber, we can't recommend taking your first foray into the club with any other cake but this one.

Are They Worth It?

Ordering a cake online, waiting two to three days for it to arrive, and letting it thaw properly over a 24-hour period before you can even slice into it — let alone take a bite — may seem like a lot of work for an item that you can pick up from your local bakery or even make at home in a lot less time. While we agree that there are easier ways to get the job done regarding cake procurement, when it comes to getting a really, really good cake for a special occasion, we fully believe in letting Goldbelly, specifically Ina, do the heavy lifting here.

Going this route does require some pre-planning since you will have to account for that delivery time and the thawing-out period, but if you're the plan-ahead type and want to present a cake that will have people wondering when you became an absolute baking legend, leaving your baked good concerns in the trusted, well-manicured hands of the Barefoot Contessa is the way to go. Gourmet, show-stopping cakes from Ina's East Hampton kitchen are delivered right to your door with just a few clicks of your mouse. It's a Goldbelly food that's worth the splurge.

Read the original article on Tasting Table.