A birthday cake is a vital part of the whole birthday celebration so making your own birthday cake is key to making the moment personal. Baking is a piece of cake providing you have a proven birthday cake recipe to get results.
Once you follow the described recipes below, and become familiar with the outcome, you can then tweak the recipe and add extra ingredients to put a spin on an old school favourite.
Basic butter birthday cake recipe
Serves approx 12 people
130g butter (Softened)
1 ½ cups self-raising flour
2 eggs
½ cup milk
½ tsp vanilla extract
¾ cup caster sugar
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, Place butter, sugar, vanilla extract in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy. Whilst mixing, beat in the eggs one at a time. Stir in sifter flour and milk until well combined. Spread mixture into a greased pan and baked until cooked (Approx 40-45 minutes) Place cake on a wire rack and allow to cool. Cover cake with butter cream mixture (See below)
Butter cream recipe
130g butter (Softened)
1 ½ cups icing sugar
3 tbsp milk
Beat butter in a bowl with an electric mixer until fluffy and almost white in color. Slowly start adding half of the icing sugar with milk while beating the mixture and then add remaining sugar. Coloring and flavors can be added at this time.
Basic chocolate birthday cake recipe
Serves approx 12 people
130g butter (Softened)
1 1/3 cups self raising flour
½ cup cocoa powder
1 ¼ cups caster sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup water
½ tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Sift flour and cocoa powder into bowl and use electric mixer on a low setting. Add in all ingredients and mix until mixture is a smooth consistency with no lumps. Spread mixture into a greased pan and baked until cooked (Approx 35-40 minutes). Place cake on a wire rack and allow to cool. Cover cake with butter cream mixture (To create a chocolate butter cream, add 1/3 cup of cocoa powder whilst combining butter cream mixture).
How to prepare a cake before decorating
Birthday cake decorating
As for decorating the cake, its entirely up to you. You can choose to cut the cake into different shapes before coating with the butter cream, adding food colorings to make it look more interesting and top with a drizzle of melted chocolate. Even adding a mixture of lollies such as smarties, cachous, crushed flake or even some chocolate kit-kat bars will do the trick.