Choosing a Birthday Cake…
Kids birthday cakes, for me, have to tick a few boxes:
- For the evening of the birthday if not the party day, a simple shape cake, for the child’s party, a party cake!
- Most obviously, the flavour has to please the birthday person,
- The cake must not be too sweet,
- The cake must not be such that the children will only eat the icing or topping and leave the rest,
- The cake has to be made from scratch,
- The cake must not create too much wastage in its making,
- The cake must be tasty even for adults, and
- All (or about all) the cake must go!
Where I grew up, our birthday cakes were pretty much all the time a type of sponge cake with a chocolate ganache or chesnut cream filling and chocolate ganache cover. There were no fancy shapes, I would not even have thought this an option to be honest!
Now, and maybe it is also a cultural difference, my children request cakes in the shape of animals or cartoon heroes (so far).
Successful Cakes
Below are a few of the cakes I made, there will be more over time, for my children or other’s. For some, the recipe is on the blog.
Peppa Pig cake. This cake consisted of a light genoise (kind of sponge cake) filled with a creme patissiere containing pieces of strawberries. The icing was a butter cream icing (not too thick).
This puppy was made of 6 cakes of chocolate marble cake, put together, the collar is made of marzipan, so is the tail which was covered with the brown fondant. The brown colours were obtained using the primary colours, my tip: just make sure you make enough initially, it is quite hard to make exactly the same brown twice! The great thing with this cake is that it will not take all the place in your fridge (it does not need to be kept in the fridge).
This crocodile birthday cake hides a Reine de Saba, which is a chocolate cake. Although some more recent recipe of Reine de Saba of flourless, this older recipe of Reine de Saba has some flour and egg white, the cake is light. The icing is a mix of mascarpone and icing sugar with food colouring. The spine is a butter cream. The white is white fondant.
This kitty cat birthday cake is made from two microwave sponge cakes, coated in a similar way than a lamington (the biscuit is put briefly in a cocoa and chocolate mix then placed in shredded coconut). The pieces hold together with kebab sticks. The day I made this cake, my oven main element broke, I had no oven, so I used the microwave. The great advantage of the microwave is the speed of the cooking, a couple minutes!
This is just a simple birthday cake. The cake itself is a yogurt cake, always a child’s delight (adults too). Inside, the cake is bright pink (added food colouring)! You could use any colour really. The icing is a cream-cheese lemon icing with a few hundred&thousands on top.
For the bigger kids, a tiered zesty flower cake. The idea was yellow colour, flowery. The cake is a genoise (with a zest of lemon added). It is filled with custard (again a subtle lemon zest). The topping is lemon curd and whipped cream, topped with daisies (edible). Around is a macadamia hazelnut crumb.
For the fans of the Pokemon world, here is a Pikachu cake. It was for an 8 years old boy and many of his school friends.
There are two cakes, two hazelnut sponge cakes filled with a raspberry chocolate whipped cream (made with real chocolate). Just delicious. The top is fondant icing which you roll and cover.
This year, Oceane asked for a unicorn cake. 
I was given ample warning, but it happened to be a few days before we moved house. The cake is a hazelnut sponge cake with a chocolate strawberry mousse in the middle. The cover is a white chocolate ganache. I tried that sharp edges ganache technique! I did not have all the required equipment, but really it is super easy! However, it does use a fair amount of chocolate.
This cake is an hazelnut sponge cake filled with whipped cream and covered in fresh berries. Simple yet delicious.
This birthday cake for for 6 y.o. The party was a sea party by a little quiet beach. This cake is a reine de Saba (Sheiba’s queen cake) covered in chocolate ganache and then decorated with rollin fondant. The pearl oyster is a macaroon with a coloured white chocolte ganache for filling.
