Seasons > Birthdays > Ways to celebrate > Birthday cakes

These are not bakery quality cakes, but just look at those faces--they are delighted! It takes time and effort, and you may not think the cake looks very good, but seeing their happy faces will make you glad you did it.

You probably can’t even tell this is a rabbit, but that’s what my daughter asked for, so she knew what it was supposed to be! (side view, tail in the back, on the left side of the photo, nose on the right side, ear above and to the left of the eye)

My two year old asked for a clown cake, so this one is lying on the plate (head on the right, feet on the left.) Various kinds of candy make up the face and clothing.

When she turned 7, she asked for a clown cake again. This time it was a 2 layer cake with m’n’m polka dots and an clown made of icing sitting on the top along with some icing balloons.

When my son turned two, he asked for a soccer ball cake. He was very disappointed that it was only HALF a ball!! (I baked it in a stainless steel bowl. If I had known it was important to be round, I would have baked two and put them together!)

When he turned 3, I made him a dump truck cake filled with candy. I made the layers in loaf pans, and added cookie tires. You could buy pound cake instead of baking it yourself. The bed of the truck is on a layer of cardboard covered in foil and supported by short dowels.

When he turned 12, I found a cake pan that made completely round ball cakes. I made him a basketball cake. For his 17th birthday, I made a trophy cake (using the same cake pan) because his favorite pro basketball team had a chance of winning in the playoffs. Unfortunately, I didn’t look up on the internet what the trophy looked like, because I thought I remembered what it looked like. Oops!

My daughter loved sylvania animals, so I bought her some new ones and put them in front of the house cake. I do have a house cake pan, but it is so deep that it is hard to get the middle baked and the outside not burned. I think it would be much easier to make 3 square layers, and trim the top layer into a peak. The roof is covered in graham crackers, and the decorations on the house are made of chocolate covered pretzel sticks and cookies. The garden in the front is made of more graham crackers with crushed oreo cookies for dirt, and what looks like real lettuce and carrot bits. (I don’t remember!) It would probably be tastier to make them from marzipan or fondant. If I had been feeding a crowd, I would have put the house cake on a sheet cake, and decorated the whole sheet cake like a garden, and I would have put a cookie fence around the edge.

Now that she is in college, I don’t get to make her birthday cakes anymore. But I still give her a birthday cake--I ask a friend who lives nearby to buy her an ice cream cake and deliver it to her dorm so she can have a party with her friends.

Castle cakes are always fun, whether it’s a birthday for a pirate, knight, or princess. They are fun for Christmas, too. All you need is ice cream cones and lots of cookies and candy for decorations. The one on the left was the made the easy way: no cake--just a cardboard frame covered in tinfoil (and paper towel tubes for the turrets.) The one on the right is made with cake. Bought poundcake makes it even easier than the cardboard foil version!

Number cakes were popular in our household for several years. I Even made my husband a “50” cake.    Here is what to do for making the shape of number cakes.

“1” is made of one loaf layer, (probably a one year old will not understand a number one cake, but an 11 year old would probably like it. ) You will need ones in every number from 10-19.

“2” is made of one round layer, and one loaf pan layer (bridge the round layer and straight layer with the part cut off of the round layer

“3” is made of two round layers with a hole and one side cut out of each

“4” is made of three loaf pan layers

“5” is made of two loaf pan layers and one small round layer

“6” and “9” are both made of one small round layer and one loaf layer

“7” is made in two loaf pans

“8” made of two round layers with a hole cut of the middle of each

“0” can be made from a round cake that is the same height as the loaf cake. If not, make a small round cake cut a hole in the middle, then cut in half.  Make the sides longer by adding another loaf cake in half and putting half on each side of the

A guitar cake is not a number cake, but it is also made with two round cakes (preferably one smaller than the other), and a loaf pan forms the neck. Use dental floss for the strings and marshmallows for the knobs that turn the stings. Frost the edges. A cut graham cracker forms the fret.

The “8” cake shown above Is made using two round layers side by side rather than stacked. This one was decorated with white chocolate shavings and little pink bow shaped candy.

We decorated my son’s “6” cake with dots made of m’n’m’s. This is a super easy way to decorate a cake, but be sure to do it at the last minute so the colors don’t bleed--we discovered that the hard way!

I decorated this 10 cake with “fruit by the foot” shaped into flowers and leaves.

This “7” cake was decorated with chocolate leaves. To make them, melt chocolate and brush it onto the backs of real leaves. Put in the fridge till hard, then peal off the real leaf. Be sure to use non-poisonous leaves that have not been sprayed with insect repellant.!

My daughter couldn’t decide if she wanted a kitchen cake or a candy store cake, so I made 2 sides to the cake. A toy pan and kettle were put on the cake “stove.” The fried eggs in the pan are sliced marshmallows with with yellow m’n’m’s for the yolks. The candy store has a paper canopy and muffin liners hold 6 kinds of candy.

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