Birthday Cakes

I’m posting this as part of the Recipe Swap at Life as Mom.

I made my first themed cake when I was about 15 years old.  My sister wanted a Bugs Bunny cake for her birthday, and I spent the evening before baking and decorating the cake.  Those were the days when I used store bought icing.  Since that time I have been introduced to the wonderful world of homemade frosting, and I don’t think that I will ever go back.  Go here to view the recipe from Martha Stewart that I use for my frosting.  Go here to view the homemade lemon curd recipe that I usually use as a filling for my white cakes. 

The lion cake above is my favorite of all of the cakes I have ever made.  It was amazingly easy to make and was a big hit at the safari themed party that we had for our daughter’s second birthday.  To make it bake a two layered round cake.  Put the base layer as a creamy yellow color.  In 3 separate bowls, place about a cup of the frosting to dye shades of tan, orange, and deep yellow.  Pipe the mane of the lion with these colors.  In another bowl dye the brown icing to pipe out the facial features.  Or, if you have chocolate on hand, you can use that.  I recommend using paste dyes, especially for the deeper colors.

I’ve used the monkey themed cake for all sorts of occasions and it is extremely easy to make.  Prepare your chocolate cake mix.  In a muffin tin, bake one muffin of the chocolate cake.  In a mixing bowl with a slightly flattened bottom, bake the remaining cake batter.  When ready to decorate the cake, cut the muffin in half and affix it to the base with a toothpick or a skewer.  You can see that the lion and monkey cakes were made at the same time because the yellow icing was used for the monkey’s face.  Martha Stewart recommends using a banana cake for the monkey cake, but I prefer chocolate. 

The butterfly cake was made for our daughter’s birthday this year.  I used cupcakes in silicone cups to shape the butterfly together.  Our daughter had been in the hospital a few days prior to this, and so the decorations on the cake weren’t as spiffy as they would have been otherwise.   It was still a big hit with the kids.  We also had some individual butterfly shaped cakes that the kids were given to decorate with various shades of frosting.  They loved this!

We try not to go too overboard on parties, but the cake is one area where we try to make it special.  My mother-in-law always made my husband and his sister specially themed cakes for their birthdays, and so it is a family tradition that I want to keep going.  Have fun with your cakes!