Bubby's Birthday Cake 2026

 

A birthday cake for our recent vacation!

It seems unreal that Bubby is turning 22!  Last year we had a big party for his 21s birthday, but it feels like that was only 6 months ago. This year we elected to travel to Grandpa's area and spend the day with him.  So as to not have to cook, we'll eat at a Mexican restaurant and we'll sing happy birthday with a dessert from their menu.  The weather forecast is for hot and rainy weather. Not ideal for traveling over 2 hours with a frosted and decorated cake.  But we can't have Bubby not have a birthday cake!  I came up with the idea of having a "Birthday Eve" cake.  

Bubby couldn't think of what flavor cake he wanted.  In the end I suggested an Oreo cake, and he liked that idea. Since I wanted to make a 6-inch cake, for just the three of us, I went with this recipe from Sugar and Sparrow. I've made it before, in two 8-inch pans.  It does have a sizable amount of batter for a cake for just 3 people, but I figured at least it would yield a nice tall cake for decorating, and we can always freeze part of the cake.

I followed the recipe to the letter, using home made cake flour, except that instead of chopping up whole Oreos I took out the cookie filling. I used Whole Foods chocolate sandwich cookies instead of the Oreo brand,  

Unfortunately my new oven bakes unevenly and there doesn't seem to be much I can do about it.  In this instance one of the cake layers baked perfectly, one collapsed in the center while cooling, and that one plus the third layer sort of fell apart at the edges when I took the out of the plastic wrap the next day.  When putting the cake together I was able to patch them up with frosting but this isn't supposed to happen!

I decorated the cake with American buttercream and fondant accents. The theme of this cake was the recent European vacation Bubby and I took. He was so delighted to go to London and Paris and has talked of nothing since. So I made a fondant London bus, a fondant Eiffel tower, and a fondant airplane cake topper. I also made fondant clouds, and I colored the frosting sky blue.  I hand colored the fondant for all the pieces, I added lots of CMC powder to the topper so it would harden quickly and it did harden enough.  Making the Eiffel tower was pretty easy because I have an Eiffel tower silicone mold like this one.  For the bus I didn't have a cookie cutter so I just made it up, and it was helpful to look at pictures of decorated cookie London buses.  I did the same for the airplane topper.  For the clouds, I also had fondant cutters so those were very easy. The only regret is that I made the bus a little bit too big, it looked out of proportion to every other decorative element on the cake.  

The London bus was a bit disproportionate.


An Eiffel Tower on either side 
of the London bus.


A look at the back of the cake. Plane flying 
through the clouds!


The birthday message was written 
in edible ink on fondant clouds.

The cake looked great and Bubby enjoyed it and so did we.  It's too bad there was no one else to share it with, but on the day of the lunch it was a relief to not be transporting a cake in 80-degree weather. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Earl Gray Cardamom Cake TO TRY

Image
  Ingredients Yield: 16 to 24 servings For the cake 1 cup/240 milliliters extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for greasing the pan 1 ½ cups/300 grams granulated sugar 2 tablespoons loose Earl Grey tea (from about 6 tea bags) 2 teaspoons baking powder ½ teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) 2 cups/480 grams sour cream or whole-milk plain Greek yogurt 3 large eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract  3 cups/384 grams all-purpose flour For the streusel 1 cup/128 grams all-purpose flour 1 cup packed/220 grams light or dark brown sugar 1 ½ teaspoons ground cardamom ½ teaspoon kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal) ½ cup/115 grams unsalted butter, melted Add ingredients to Grocery List Shop ingredients on Instacart Your first order gets $20 off and free delivery. Instacart terms apply. Ingredient Substitution Guide Nutritional Information OUR LATEST NEWSLETTER Miso and Mushrooms and Leeks, Oh My Get the Cooking Newsletter Opt out or  contact us  anytim...
Read more

Nordic Ware Spice Cakes

Image
Mini spice cakes with a Fall theme Wondering what to make for a small gathering on my patio to welcome Fall, I remembered my Nordic Ware pan.  I got it on sale at Sur la Table while visiting my sister in Arlington VA a few years ago, and I remember using the recipe that came with the pan to make some pretty tasty spice cakes.  I couldn't find the recipe, but a quick internet search uncovered it.   Here  it is, under the name Mini Harvest Spice Cakes.  I'm writing it below for future reference: INGREDIENTS 1 1/2 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 1 Tbsp cinnamon 1 tsp ground ginger 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg 1 cup sugar 1/4 cup packed brown sugar 3/4 cup butter, melted and slightly cooled 2 eggs, room temperature 1 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup milk DIRECTIONS Preheat oven to 350°F. Prepare pan with baking spray containing flour or butter and flour. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and spices. Using a standing mixer, cream sugar and butter unt...
Read more

Skolebrod Custard Buns

Image
Norwegian Skolebrod custard buns Earlier in the week I'd made a French Fruit Tart and I had a good amount of pastry cream leftover. I didn't want it to go to waste, and it's not something you can really freeze. Although I've never tried to freeze pastry cream, I've read that it separates when it thaws, and trying to reconstitute it sounds like a pain.  So, I decided to make Skolebrod Custard Buns .  The word Skolebrod is Norwegian for "school bread" and I've read this is a traditional treat schoolchildren would enjoy when they got home from school, or maybe they were sent to school in their lunchboxes.  Apparently in Norway you find them in every bakery. I've made them before, and they're delicious. Here  is the recipe I used. It was already in my recipe binder.  This time, I decided to halve it because it looked like I only had 7 spoonfuls of pastry cream.  However, I wish I'd made the entire recipe and  made smaller rolls.  Each bun ended...
Read more