No birthday celebration is complete without some rendition of the Happy Birthday song followed by the traditional wish-making, candle-blowing and rancorous applause. Birthday cakes have been an essential part of the birthday since who knows when, manifesting in various shapes, flavors and sizes according to preference. There?s no shame in picking up a decent-quality cake from your local supermarket but when you do so, choosing what frosting-formed message to squeeze upon it is as sentimental as you can get. Most of us opt for store-bought rather than homemade due to time constraints, and sometimes sheer laziness. Unfortunately, sometimes the feeling behind celebrating a birthday gets lost in a commercial rush.
Baking birthday cakes on your own definitely takes more time and effort, but it also gives more thought. It shows that you?ve considered what kind of cake the person would like to eat, what sort of aesthetic presentation they would prefer, and so on. You?ve creating your own interpretation of what they would enjoy instead of taking your pick from factory-packaged options. A homemade birthday cake is special?it truly comes from a place of generosity and caring, and makes for a delightful surprise.
Homemade birthday cakes are easier to pull off than you might think. You might be intimidated by the prospect of deviating from the usual rectangle or round design. But take a slightly more complex shape like the pentagon. Maybe you?re fashioning a castle turret for the special medieval enthusiast in your life. A simple turret can be formed from a tall rectangle with a triangle placed on top of it. It?s natural to think of a cake as one entity, but a cake is actually made up of many different parts if you think about it: the frosting, the decorations, and cake layer upon cake layer. No one will see the disjoint between pieces since everything gets covered with frosting anyway, and consequently sliced and eaten (in traditionally triangular prism-like pieces, but feel free to experiment).
You can play around with the appearance and form of a cake, but in the end birthday cakes are meant for one basic purpose: to be eaten. Please don?t smash birthday cakes into people?s faces! Many, including myself, poorly understand this practice. But if you must, be considerate and lay off on the frosting to create the smallest mess possible. Of course those of you planning to participate in this will make sure to do the opposite.
All in all, baking your own special cake is a thoughtful gesture, and it can be a lot of fun too. The next time a birthday for someone special comes up, you might consider concocting a special treat for the occasion.
As a side note, it?s okay to use candles you?ve purchased. Painstakingly stringing a stubborn wick into hand-carved wax may be putting a little too much thought into it.
Tags: birthday cakes