Cakey is a specific look, and it is worth naming precisely before buying anything: it is makeup that reads as a separate layer sitting on top of skin rather than as skin. You see the edges of it. You see it break around the nose and mouth. In raking light you can see where it ends and where your face begins.
On mature skin there are five causes, and only two of them are the foundation. The first is dryness — a dry patch does not absorb product evenly, so foundation grabs, dries darker and sits in a visible plaque. The second is texture: product bridges across a lined or crepey surface and then cracks along the lines when you move. The third is quantity, which is far and away the most common. The fourth is powder, layered over a liquid that had not set, which turns a thin film into a thick one. The fifth is a formula that sets hard and matte, so it has no give when your face moves.
That list explains why the usual advice — buy lighter coverage — only half works. A sheer foundation applied thickly to dry skin still cakes. And a medium-coverage foundation applied in a thin layer onto a hydrated surface usually does not. The variable that matters most is how thick the film is, not how opaque it is.
So the products below are chosen on two criteria. They are thin and flexible enough to move with your face, which rules out longwear matte formulas that cure to a hard finish. And they are easy to apply in a thin layer, which rules out thick creams that need working and reworking into place. Where more coverage is needed, it comes from building up in a second thin layer rather than putting more on at once.
One thing to fix before you buy anything: if your skin is dry, no foundation will solve this. Moisturize, wait two full minutes, and only then put base on. The dry skin page covers that in detail, and the why foundation settles guide covers the mechanism behind the cracking.
