Birthday Cake
- Tracy Scheckel
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
August is a big birthday month in our family: locally here in New England, in addition to my husband, my grandson, his dad and his step mom all celebrate their birthdays. My grandson David celebrates at the beginning of the month but was coming with the rest of the crew to visit in mid-August. I decided that being the child among the celebrants that he should pick the kind of cake we'd celebrate with. Silly me to think that as he's approaching teenhood, he would ask for something grown-up and on the gourmet side..... So, Nana's version of fun-fetti it was.
On principle, I CAN NOT use store bought frosting, so was very excited to find that Pilsbury makes a 'kit' that in addition to the sprinkles in the cake mix includes a pouch of sprinkles and stars to decorate your own frosting. This seemed to be the perfect solution. Then I heard that his other Nana had made him a fun-fetti cake earlier in the month and that twinge of the competitive inner me reared its head. My cake needed to be cooler than hers......
I decided to exercise my round layer pans, and use the inner 3 layers to pep things up a bit with bright neon colored buttercream to compliment the sprinkles and stars.
When I prepared the cake mix, I made sure to do it in a half-gallon measuring bowl so that I could easily gauge how mush batter to put in each of the 4 pans. (for this mix it came out to about 3/4 cup per layer)
I baked the layers in my parchment lined pans for about 15 minutes at 350 and after toothpick testing for doneness removed them, to racks to cool. Depending on the type of cake batter, it can take up to 20 minutes or as little at 10. While the layers were baking I made the butter cream. My plan was to do both of these tasks ahead of time and do the assembly on another evening. If you're embarking on the full project at once, just make sure the layers are cooled completely before attempting to frost them.
When it was time for assemble, we set the frosting out to warm up a bit, gathered the layers, our neon food coloring gels and decided what the inside layers should look like. We decided on one batch of each color so I divided the frosting into 3/4 cup portions for coloring and left the remaining for the sides.
I say we because I am lucky;to be married to a man who is an amazing cake froster; he has patience well beyond mine and steady hands.
John opted for orange on the bottom, red in the middle and green in the top layer before topping the layer cake with blue.
Once the cake was frosted, we added the sprinkles and stars gently pressing them to the frosting before refrigerating until our celebration.
David loved the cake! (I made a key lime merengue for those of us looking for less of a sugar high!
THE RECIPE
For the birthday cake
1 cake mix prepared according to package directions
If your making layers, bake at the recommended temperature but start checking for doneness at 10 minutes or so
NOTE for layers, spray each pan with some cooking spray and cut a piece of parchment to line each pan before you pour the batter in.
When the cake or layers are done, carefully lift them using a spatula and the edge of the parchment and set them on a rack to cool completely before decorating or refrigerating.
If refrigerating, peel the parchment paper off the layers and place a sheet of wax paper between each layer and store in a large zipper bag or other air-tight container.
For the frosting
3 sticks of unsalted butter at room temperature
6 C powdered sugar
2t vanilla extract
a pinch of salt
3-5 T heavy cream or 1/2 & 1/2
Gel food colors
In a small cowl of measuring cup, whisk the vanilla ans salt together to combine
Place the butter in a large bowl and pour in the vanilla
With a hand or stand mixer beat the butter, salt and vanilla until fluffy.
In small batches add in the sugar until fully combined.
Add the cream a tablespoon at a time, but if coloring the frosting, don't make it too soft.
If I'm coloring or saving the frosting for later use, I am very skimpy with the cream. The gels will thin the mixture and it's easy to add extra cream if need be when it's time to actually frost the cake.; if it gets too thin, its more challenging to add sugar without ending up with limping frosting.
If coloring the frosting, divide it into the small bowls equal to the number of colors you want to do.
Using gels that won't water the frosting down too much, add and stir until your desired color intensity.
You can also add drops of cream to get it to the right consistency if it's too stiff.
