What’s the best birthday cake?
Katie, by email
“My mum once made a cake with mini rolls made to look like cats with googly eyes and strawberry lace tails,” says Nicola Lamb, author of Sift and the Kitchen Projects newsletter. And that’s the whole point of a birthday cake, right? It should align with the recipient’s favourite thing: “That could even be a lasagne,” Lamb says. “I’m not at all prescriptive about what you stick a candle into.”
Of course, some cakes are a safer choice than others. Take the Victoria sponge: “I don’t think anyone is going to have a problem with a plush vanilla sponge, jam and cream job,” Lamb says. “If you want to lower the effort and feed a lot of people, bake the sponge in a brownie tray for a single-layer, low and wide cake, spread whipped cream stabilised with mascarpone over the top, dollop on some jam and you’re good to go.” That said, you could go for a vanilla or chocolate buttercream instead, which, Lamb adds, comes with the bonus of welcoming sprinkles.
For Tanya Bush, author of Will This Make You Happy?, a dark chocolate and toasted coconut number comes to mind: “Supple olive oil sponge that’s heavy on the chocolate and filled with coconut custard, plus a cream cheese frosting to balance the richness – well, it is a celebration.” Crucially, a Bush birthday cake needs layers: “That’s the hallmark of all birthday cakes. I also like a textural component, which here means toasted coconut flakes on the outside, that bring a pleasing crunch and also hide all manner of sins.”
You’re likely to find Edd Kimber turning up with a chocolate cake, too. If the author of Chocolate Baking is making it for a true chocolate believer, he’ll coat it in ganache (“for its purity of flavour”), otherwise he’d go meringue buttercream: “Super-silky and it can be flavoured however you prefer.” Kimber’s devil is in the detail: level cake layers. “If they tend to dome, you can do a few things: one, lower the oven temperature by 10 degrees and bake the cake a little longer; two, use deeper tins; and three, use cake strips, which insulate the sides of the tin, meaning the batter bakes evenly and results in level cakes.”
While it may not have the glamour of some, Lamb will be hoping for a lemon drizzle come her birthday: “It’s such a crowdpleasing, joyful sponge, and the drizzle is the decoration,” she says. It’s a snap to make, too. To ramp up the flavour, Matt Adlard, author of The Science of Baking, would rub lemon zest into the sugar “to release all the citrus oils, and add a sneaky splash of lemon extract for an extra lemony boost.” Lemon drizzle is also a dream to transport, not to mention slice, Lamb adds: “A loaf cake is really underrated, because nothing irks me as much as a cake that gets hacked apart.”
That said, I think we can all agree that rule goes out the window when it comes to the iconic Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book, which houses a universe of ducks with crinkly crisp beaks and (my favourite) jelly swimming pools with chocolate finger railings. “There’s something particularly joyful about highly themed cakes, because they make people smile,” Lamb says. “Birthday cakes don’t need to age with chicness.”
