Your best birthday cake recipes

[lilias]

I just did a search but couldn't find any birthday cake recipes.
My DD is turning one in about three weeks and I need a basic birthday cake recipe. I want to make it myself so I need to do a practice run or two!! I would like to make a butterfly or catterpillar or something like that, don't know if that would make a differen as to which recipe I should use?? Please help! Can I have your yummiest cake recipes please?

[Rouge]

It depends what you want, I prefer to make buttercake when doing kids birthday cakes, but you can do chocolate if you prefer its just that you'd need to do a good crumb coating of icing before you ice properly so you don't end up with brown flecks

[lilias]

Ooookkkkaaayyy...I have no idea what I'm doing so the easier the better!
A butter cake sounds yummy

[Rouge]

This one is *really* easy... Its from the huggies site but we won't hold that against it LOL

Butter Cake Recipe

This butter cake recipe is very versatile and can be used to make any number of combinations for a party.

Ingredients:

These quantities make one standard cake.

125grams of softened butter
2/3 cup of caster sugar
2 eggs (lightly beaten)
1 tsp Vanilla Essence
2 cups SR Flour
2/3 cup milk

Method:

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Add eggs and Vanilla Essence (Beat until well mixed)
Add small amounts of flour and milk until well mixed in together.
Place into a lined and greased tin and cook for 45mins in an oven pre-heated to 180C.
Test with a skewer to ensure that it is cooked.

Variations:

Chocolate cake

To turn this recipe into a chocolate cake add 2tbs of cocoa and 2tbs of milk to the mixture and beat through.

Marble Cake

Separate mixture into 3 equal parts in different bowls.
Add a couple of drops of pink food colouring to one part.
Add 1tbs of cocoa and 1tbs of milk to one part.
Now spoon the different mixtures into the tin, one spoonful at a time, so that the colours alternate. To finish off the effect use a knife or skewer and swirl the colours together.

Patty Cakes

Fill patty cases to about 3/4 full
Place onto an oven tray and cook for about 12-15 mins or until golden on top.

Butterfly Cakes

Make the patty cakes and wait for them to cool.
Carefully scoop out the top of the cake and cut in half.
Add some whipped cream to the top of the cake and reattach the ?wings? so that they stand up. You can always decorate these with a dash of coloured sprinkles.

If doing a Character Cake you might need a large rectangle tin (its nearly A4 size the one I use) and it's a lot easier to cut things out. OR you can do a square tin and a round tin and cut out from that Let me know if you want tips or hints... a fave site of mine for cakes is Cake decorating ideas, cake tips, cake decorating articles, cake recipes, photos and more. CakeCentral.com gives great ideas!

[MistyFying]

Cai I'm up to my eyeballs in Miss G's birthday cake as we speak.....

you'd need to do a good crumb coating of icing before you ice properly

is that just plain icing sugar and water type icing as a base?

[Rouge]

I just do a thin coating of the icing I'm going to use to ice the cake In my case its always butter icing which my recipe is 200g butter 200g icing sugar (or 250x250) and 1 tsp vanilla. Beat/Mix the butter till its pale, add the vanilla and sugar, Mix again till light and desired consistency. Then just divide up into however many bowls you need for whatever colours you want But generally the buttercoating is non coloured for the crumb coating iykwim?

[MistyFying]

OK I'll give that a whirl.... she's not quite sure which design she's having yet (ie one for her "real birthday", one to take to school, and one for her party with her school friends )

[Lulu]

Mmmm, buttercake....

You just have to take a look at the good old Womens Weekly Party Cakes - I luuurve it!

[Fairamay]

I have made a caterpillar before, I just bought some large chocolate muffins, which you could make yourself...i didn't have time....they can be just a cake mix of any type in muffin tins. Covered him with green icing and large shredded coconut, eyes and mouth some confectionary of course...and well he was just fantastic, email me for a picture of him.... I also made a mountain of dirt choc cake once with bugs and lizards crawling all over it, the boys liked that one heaps..it was cooooolllll according to them..just choc icing, and a couple of crumbled choc biscuits and a crumbled flake.

jbjmic@bigpond.net.au