What Would you Like on Your Birthday Cake?
It's my birthday, too, yeah!
Not my favorite Beatles song, but I have this really sweet memory connected to it. Many years ago, I returned to my dorm room after having a birthday dinner with my boyfriend, and as I was putting away my things, I heard that song coming from the room of one of my suitemates. It took me a while to realize my friends were playing it (over and over, because I wasn't catching on) for me, and I walked into their room to find nineteen candles blazing on a cake shaped (sort of) like a guitar, which I played at the time.
Thus started my fascination with birthday cakes and since today actually is my birthday, I hope you'll indulge me as I share some special cakes I found on the web. Some make me drool, others make me retch. Either way, they're fun to look at!
Starting in a literary vein (no pun intended), here are a couple of clever Twilight cakes from a Squidoo blog.
(You can find more Miss Catty Cakes here. )
Got any three-year-old girls in the house? My three-year-old granddaughter came home from preschool the other day and announced she's going to marry Justin Bieber, a statement that left my stepdaughter kind of shaken. I mean three? My stepdaughter says she's picked up this Bieber Fever from some older girls at preschool, meaning the five-year-olds. Anyway, here are a couple of JB cakes for your entertainment.
(More Bieber Baked Goods here.)
I'm a big Taco Bell fan. I even owe one of my novel ideas to Taco Bell, since it came from a conversation I overheard while munching a burrito. But since I'm now on a low sodium diet, my TB days may be over. Sugar, however, is not sodium! So this cake may be as close as I can get to a taco these days.
Now for some classier cakes. I can't relate to these at all, since I could care less about shoes and purses, but I bet they'll float some of your boats. The top two are from Piece-of-Cake bakery, which is not far from where I live in North Carolina. I know who I'm calling for the next intriguing cake I need. (And yes, the shoe is edible for those of you with a fetish).
This purse above is from Sweet Treats by Jen and every bit of it, too, is edible.
For the drummers:
From Scrum Diddly Cakes. I would LOVE to meet Olivia. I bet she's an interesting kid!
Any Angry Bird addicts out there? This dad made an edible Angry Birds game for his son's birthday. What a guy!
Whew! Some creative people out there! Since I'm writing this post a few days before my birthday, I'm not sure what my cake will be like. I'm on deadline, however, so I have a feeling my cake will look something like this:
But hopefully after a day on the computer, I'll get a chance to do this:
So how about you? If someone made a birthday cake just for you right now, what would it look like?
I would like a giant flourless chocolate lava cake shaped like a volcano!
Posted by: gaylin in vancouver | March 18, 2011 at 03:09 AM
Happy Birthday, Diane!
I would like my birthday cake to be designed in the shape of library with replicas of my favorite books on the tiered shelves. There would be a comfortable chair at one end and a table lamp beside the chair.
A small table with a cup of coffee would top it off.
Posted by: marie | March 18, 2011 at 03:42 AM
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, Diane!
I'd want a chocolate cake with chocolate icing, a la Betty Crocker, with a huge scoop (or two or three) of Mayfield's Vanilla ice cream on the side. What can I say? I'm just a girl with simple tastes. ;-)
Posted by: Becky Hutchison | March 18, 2011 at 05:49 AM
Happy birthday! I'm with Becky. A simple chocolate cake with my mom's homemade buttercream frosting is what I'd wish for. Toss a scoop of Moosetracks ice cream on the side and I'm in heaven!
Posted by: stuckinmypedals | March 18, 2011 at 05:53 AM
Becky nailed it perfectly! Chocolate cake, with chocolate icing, and chocolate ice cream on top; memories of birthdays past....:) My brother was a butterscotch kind of guy, and we are four years and one day apart. One year, as the cliche goes, he got butterscotch on my chocolate, so I slapped some chocolate on his butterscotch.
Mom's life got much easier after that year....:)
Posted by: William | March 18, 2011 at 05:57 AM
Happy bday, Diane. What a fun and cheerful blog. I love it, especially the adorable Angry Birds vid.
Let's see, I'm a white cake kind of girl, especially wedding cakes, so that's what I'd like today, please. You can put my cats on top--little cake cats.
Posted by: Nancy Pickard | March 18, 2011 at 07:59 AM
Happy Birthday Diane! I am with William, there is no such thing as too much chocolate on and around my birhtday cake. I made my son fun cakes every year for his birthday. I miss doing it now that he is all grown up and lives 8 hours away.
Posted by: Mo | March 18, 2011 at 08:02 AM
Happy Birthday, Diane!
My birthday was the 7th. My criteria for a cake:
#1) Chocolate Cake;
#2) Chocolate icing.
That's all!
Some friends celebrated my birthday with me, and the cake was a flourless chocolate cake with a covering of whipped cream and a large chocolate candy disk on top, with icing spelling out "Happy Birthday Deb". Yummy!
When I was a kid, my mom sometimes tried to make "character" cakes for us. She did a Cinderella cake for one of us (I don't remember which of us - there were five), and when it came time to cut it, the knife wouldn't go down - at all - through any of the layers. Then the cake collapsed. All the little kids breathed "awwww!". It still tasted pretty good, though!
Posted by: Deb | March 18, 2011 at 08:45 AM
I worked for a wedding cake baker for about six months. This is some of the cakes I delivered: http://theportmans.name/index.php/component/option,com_zoom/Itemid,52/PageNo,1/catid,58/
I always wanted to catch back up with the high school girl who worked Saturday afternoons. She usually ended up up to her armpits in white buttercream cleaning the mixer after we frosted a few wedding cakes. I wanted to see her wedding cake.
The statute of limitations has run out so I can now tell the tale. The cake bakers were from Denmark. They made cakes for their friends as well. We had a lot of marzipan and chocolate and cakes. More than a few cakes were made that had very realistic marzipan "rhymes with Carolinas" on them.
For my father's 50th birthday party we (my brother, SIL, Molly and me) made a 50 car train cake. My mother had made a 5 car train for my 5th birthday and thought it would be neat. This is the 6 car train I made for princess two's fifth birthday. http://theportmans.name/index.php/component/option,com_zoom/Itemid,52/PageNo,1/catid,78/hit,1/key,0/page,view/ The girls have also had jewelry boxes, purses, teddy bears and butterflys.
I love watching Ace of Cakes. There is one cake that is a very realistic set of toys. The cake was for a first birthday party. Cake from Ace of Cakes start at $1,000.
I like German Chocolate. I am the only one in my house who does. My cakes used to be exactly what Molly likes to eat, Chocolate with white icing.
This year, slim Al had a tray of petit fours for a cake.
Posted by: Alan P. | March 18, 2011 at 09:31 AM
I forgot! The train cake has both Molly and Merav's name on it because they share a birthday.
Posted by: Alan P. | March 18, 2011 at 09:32 AM
My birthday is actually tomorrow and I love a good carrot cake with walnuts and raisins and, of course, with cream cheese frosting.
My darling daughter #1 has a 3-11 bday and this year wanted a French Silk pie, so that's what she got. She's now 22 and the thought of baked birthday treats has kind of lost it's appeal since she worked in the local grocery store bakery for over two years.
Darling daughter #2's birthday was 3-13 and she just turned 16. Watch out world because she passed her road test on Wednesday and is now a licensed driver. She is a Spiderman fanatic and she wanted an ice cream cake with Spidey's face on it. Well mom couldn't let this special occasion pass without getting her precious what she wanted, but the Spiderman cakes are only one of those edible transfers and that just wouldn't do.
So this creative type mom bought a minimally decorated 9" round cake that has some red and blue borders and a little bit of airbrush color on it and hid it in the trunk of the car. Since I live in Minnesota and it's winter, I left the cake in the trunk and didn't realize that the temp outside had risen, so when I went to get out the cake several hours later, it had kinda melted into a 12" flat cake. Well, it's after 9 at night and I am not going to purchase another cake, so I put it in the freezer and get up early the next morning and it's now frozen solid and actually the melting gave me more surface area to work with, so I used that wonderfully modern invention -- tubed icing -- to create a pretty credible Spidey face. It wouldn't win any awards, but it was what my daughter wanted and she was very happy with it.
Posted by: DebbraSue | March 18, 2011 at 10:04 AM
Happy Birthday, Diane!!!
These cakes are amazing.
I'm a big Angry Birds fan/addict. I'm afraid I'd want to smash that cake rather than eat it.
I love cake. If someone were to make a an artsy cake for me, I think I'd like it to be a book. But the birthday cake would be chocolate cake with some dark chocolates chunkies in it with chocolate buttercream icing (extra icing) with some white chocolate shavings on top. Topped with a good vanilla bean ice cream.
oh my. what'll I do about this craving you've stirred up?! Trying very hard to drop a few pounds . . .
Posted by: Kaye Barley | March 18, 2011 at 10:17 AM
Alan, what fun it must have been to work on cakes. loved the pictures. DebbraSue, the melted Spiderman cake cracked me up! Kaye, I've yet to play Angry Birds. I tried once and didn't get the allure, which is a good thing. I'm already a scrabble and bubbles addict.
Posted by: Diane Chamberlain | March 18, 2011 at 10:32 AM
Happy birthday, Diane. I'm torn between a classic carrot cake with cream cheese icing or a big chocolate brownie made with lots of black walnuts. Ummm!
Posted by: Margaret Maron | March 18, 2011 at 10:50 AM
I like German chocolate cake. Also pineapple upside down. Oh, and carrot.
These cakes are beautiful, so naturally I must recommend you check out http://www.cakewrecks.com.
Posted by: Gayle Carline | March 18, 2011 at 11:04 AM
I am the cake baker/decorator in the family, so everybody got whatever I felt like making. Although, I did try to honor requests for flavors. :)
I usually received a Carvel ice cream cake as my birthday is July 7th. My only request was that it be any colors but red, white and blue. I am very patriotic, but I wanted to not be forced into a color scheme on my day.
If I had the opportunity to pick a fancy, it would probably involved carousels or Eeyore or music. And lots of chocolate. But I ultimately, like it simple. Like all of the cakes and cupcakes that I recently baked...
Posted by: Debby | March 18, 2011 at 11:15 AM
Happy birthday, Diane!
Gaylin, I'm with you on the flourless chocolate cake, or a chocolate cake with a homemade peppermint fudge icing that my youngest daughter and I invented. However, this is my all-time favorite cake, by my all-time favorite bakery:
https://servatipastry.webfeatsecurity.com/Product-Description.aspx?ProdId=4
Sacher torte, made famous by the Sacher Hotel in Austria, nothing better. My beloved oldest daughter made sure I had one for the surprise 50th birthday party they sprang on me. I think Rod and his wife were there, by golly!
I don't get the current trend for insane cake creations. They're fun to look at, but it creeps me out to think of eating stuff that's had so many hands on it. Yikes.
Posted by: Karen in Ohio | March 18, 2011 at 11:43 AM
PS Nancy M, LOVE your new website!
Posted by: Karen in Ohio | March 18, 2011 at 11:56 AM
Despite my rampant and madness inspired imagination, my birthday cake would look like a chocolate cake covered in thick bittersweet chocolate buttercream icing with a big bowl of dark chocolate ice cream on the side.
Served to me by naked elf maidens.
Posted by: Doc In CA | March 18, 2011 at 12:03 PM
For my grandson's milestone birthday my daughter decorated red velvet cupcakes with each letter of my grandson's name. She arranged them in order on a tiered cake holder. Very impressive, indeed.
I confess to having a weakness for bakery cakes with white frosting and decorated with white flowers.
When I ordered cakes for my workplace invariably people wanted chocolate sheet cakes with raspberry filling..delicious!
Posted by: marie | March 18, 2011 at 12:22 PM
Karen in Ohio! Yes, that is also why I also don't get the current fancy, amazing cake craze - so many hands touching it and let me tell you, Ace of Cakes, that shop sometimes looks not so clean. Also they often make the cakes a week in advance of decorating, wow, stale cake starting at $1,000. Not for me.
When we were kids my mom made cakes from scratch, wacky cake, blueberry buckle etc. For our birthdays we got extra special cakes from a mix! Betty Crocker!!! I also picked chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing. If I could still eat cake, I would have it again only not from a mix.
On my last birthday I made flourless chocolate cupcakes frosted with peanut butter ganache, yum.
Posted by: gaylin in vancouver | March 18, 2011 at 12:53 PM
All this discussion of chocolate is making me very hungry. Red velvet is my absolute favorite (and it DOES have cocoa in it, you know), but I think it's mainly the cream cheese icing that draws me in. Give me a bucket of that icing and skip the cake and I'd be just as happy, if a little sick.
Posted by: Diane Chamberlain | March 18, 2011 at 01:14 PM
Stale cake for $1,000, and up. Yep, doesn't get any better than that. Not.
When we were kids my mom, who is an indifferent cook but an amazing baker, made carrot cakes and German sweet chocolate cakes from scratch. I can still remember those huge bowls of lusciously orange grated carrots, and the boiled coconut topping, chockful of chopped pecans. A good carrot cake can still turn my head, even without any baby carrot jockeys * on it!
* http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/2008/06/naked-mohawk-baby-carrot-jockeys.html
Posted by: Karen in Ohio | March 18, 2011 at 01:24 PM
Happy Birthday!
When a young friend won the Jeopardy Teen Tournament, we had a cake from Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, MD (this is where they filmed Ace of Cakes).
I thought it looked fantastic, but didn't expect it to taste that great - but it was AMAZING! They seal off the layers with fondant so the layers you aren't eating stay fresh.
I highly recommend the red velvet.
Posted by: Kathy Reschini Sweeney | March 18, 2011 at 03:39 PM
I'm with Kathy on red velvet.
But give me that bathtub cake and a hefty measure of wine. That'll do.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
Posted by: Barbara O'Neal | March 18, 2011 at 04:22 PM
HAppy Birthday HAppy Birthday!! xoxooxoo
Posted by: Hank Phillippi Ryan | March 18, 2011 at 08:16 PM
Happy Birthday, Diane!
I love these cakes! Wow! I usually have heart cakes, because my birthday is on St. Valentine's Day. What I would really like, though is a German chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream. I guess that wouldn't decorate very well, but it's my favorite.
<3 Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy Happy Birthday!
Posted by: Reine | March 18, 2011 at 08:39 PM
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and many more, each happier than the one before!
. . . and give me cheesecake anyday! (Though Al's creations are wonderful, too!)
Great web site, Nancy!
Kathy, so wish I could have eaten victory cake with Team Rachel!
Posted by: Storyteller Mary | March 18, 2011 at 10:18 PM
Reine, one year when I asked for Angel Food cake for my birthday, my indulgent and creative mother made a circle of foil to put the Happy Birthday Mary on . . . My brother Dave was the one who liked icing, so he got the foil.
Posted by: Storyteller Mary | March 18, 2011 at 10:22 PM
I had the best and worst when it came to birthdays growing up... There were a lot of us March birthdays (Dad was 13th, little brother 14th, grandmother 17th, and last me on the 24th) My brother is almost 7 years younger than me (he likes to point out that for 10 days he is only 6 years younger...) but I remember him having elaborate treasure chest and horse type birthday cakes while mine were just round. I know that's probably not true but that it what I remember... except for the year my birthday was on easter and my dad made me a coconut bunny cake (I'm allergic to coconut...) that year was the best...
I rather like cupcakes better than cake despite the fact that they come from the same place. I am a from scratch baker so boxes make me sorta gag... Chocolate cake with pink and green buttercream frosting has to be where I would like next week to go...
Posted by: Elizabeth- Cambridge, MA | March 18, 2011 at 11:10 PM
Mary, that's cute.
Posted by: Reine | March 19, 2011 at 12:50 AM