Birthday Cake Recipes!

I helped my mom make her famous white cake this week, the one she made for all the weddings and special occasions. It's phenomenal - and without all the new "hacks" of pouring simple syrup over your cake to try to get back moisture. Nope - it was always moist, delicious, and beautiful. For my 13th birthday, she made me a Magical Moves Barbie cake with the actual barbie in it. The cake was her dress, and she decorated the bodice with frosting. It was gorgeous. Thanks Mom!

After decorating the white cake, mom hinted at giving Eli's birthday cake decorating another try, and so I thought it over. Why not? I can't improve my skills if I don't practice them. I started with my mom's white cake recipe - but swapped the shortening for real butter because I can't bring myself to use it. And things were going really well until I started looking at the clock. Oh I didn't mention I was doing this while my son was in school? Anyway, I separated the egg yolks from the egg whites, and was ready to put them in the cake and I forgot the most important step - whipping the egg whites to peak consistency before adding them into the mixture.

So, I pivoted. Since the egg whites didn't work that way, I needed to add in the egg yolks as an emulsifier to fix the problem. And in doing these 2 things, I created a yellow cake.

Yeah, so vanilla , cake can be made as a white cake or a yellow cake. The difference is usually just in the eggs:

• white cake uses egg whites

• yellow cake uses whole eggs and sometimes added egg yolks

But, sometimes there is an extra difference:

• white cake may use shortening for half or all it's fat

• yellow cake uses butter for the fat

Both are vanilla cake. Now when you look at a cake recipe, you can tell if it's a white or yellow one.

Cake from Art

I don't have fancy cake equipment. I've got regular people tools, plus piping bags I never thought I'd use. So I baked my cake in one 9x9" stoneware baking pan, and poured the rest into 2 ramekins we use as dishes. I wanted to make a fire truck or some kind of vehicle he liked, since he loves drawing them - they are all over my house. But I wasn't sure how to do it.

Birthday Boy to the Rescue

He loved my idea, and showed me a picture of his police car. Bingo! So we started brainstorming how to cut a square cake to make it longer and have extra cake for the lights on top. We sliced the cake with our bread knife, and stuck them together with buttercream frosting during the crumb coat.

We used natural food coloring and real butter in our buttercream frosting.

Buttercream Frosting

• 2 sticks butter, softened

• 2 tsp vanilla extract

• 4 - 5 cups powdered sugar

• 2 tbsp - 1/2 cup heavy cream

• 1 tsp gelatin (optional)

Directions

1. Add the butter, powdered sugar, and extract to a mixing bowl.

2. I used the paddle attachment, starting on low speed, to incorporate the ingredients.

3. Slowly add heavy cream 1 tbsp. at a time until desired consistency.

4. If using gelatin, mix 1 tsp gelatin with 2 tsp cold water. Cover with 2 tbsp boiling water and mix until dissolved. Add to the buttercream while mixing at the very end.