Best Birthday Cake

Last year, the kids and I started a new tradition for their Dad’s birthday by baking a cake for him.

The children were so excited to make something special for him and Dad was very surprised and touched by this gesture and their excitement in surprising him for his birthday.

This year, I am a little bit more prepared and I actually bought sprinkles (no need for shamrock sprinkles this year!). I am truly surprised my kids haven’t told Dad we are making him a cake again! A five and a two year old are not a guarantee that secrets will be kept for long. I hope I didn’t just jinx myself … fingers crossed!

My kiddos liked the cake we did last year, so we are doing a colorful sprinkle cake, but this time I am adding a new element from another recipe that will make an even more amazing cake. This year Hubby’s birthday is on Saturday and the kids and I stay home on Fridays, so it works out perfect! We will be ditching the gym this Friday to bake Daddy’s cake so by the time he gets home, the cake is the fridge and the mess is clean. I hope!

I know he’s had many amazing cakes in his 30 plus years of life, his mom loves baking, so every celebration at his parents’ house is always accompanied by baked goods. Now, I could never compete with a cake baked by his mom, but I am sure this one will be equally as special since it was made by is two little mini-me (or I should day mini-him?).

The first time I saw Chef Christina Tosi’s birthday layer cake on Netflix’s Chef’s Table, I knew I had to make this cake. I originally thought I would make it for my daughter’s birthday but this year we decided to forego the party and surprise with a trip to Disneyland, so I didn’t get a chance to make this cake.

I was so excited for this cake until I read the recipe, I thought, no way! I love the look of the cake, I love her as a chef and I love her recipes, but there is absolutely no way I can do a recipe that is 4 pages long and involves four different processes. If I were to make this on my own, without the kids helping me, or baking over the course of two days, I would totally do it, but this seemed a huge to task to take on and finish before hubby came home. I will definitely try making this recipe someday, this time I just chose to add the birthday cake soak from her recipe. Soaking the cooled cake in vanilla milk before assembling it makes it moister and just brings out the vanilla flavor the cake already has. I thought about adding the birthday cake crumbs form here recipe but we were running of time. I will definitely add them next year and do Nutella frosting instead!

This year we made three 8” round cakes and 3 batches of frosting. I really wanted a tall cake but you will be just fine with a two layer cake if you wish to make it smaller.

 This Confetti Party Cake Recipe from Deb Perelman will make one round of cake and one batch of frosting.

Two layers ready, one more to go!

Confetti frosting

I’m not quite sure if Hubby forgot about the huge “DO NOT OPEN” sign on the fridge or if he was too curious to wait until his birthday, because when I came back to the living room after putting the kids to bed he said: “I’m sorry, I saw the cake. I can’t wait to try it.  I hope it has Nutella frosting inside”.  Oops! No Nutella, I thought.  The kids planned his cake and it didn’t cross my mind to make Nutella frosting.  Why didn’t I come up with that idea? I don’t know anyone who loves this delicious chocolate hazelnut spread more than he does. So I made a last minute change the next day right before presenting the cake to him. We added a layer of hot fudge chocolate.

 There's always a batch of The Pioneer Women's Hot Fudge Sauce in the fridge. This recipe is made in a  bat of an eye and it is just perfect for ice cream and gave a delicious contrast of flavors with the vanilla sprinkle frosting. I think you will love it as much as we do!

more sprinkles!

The hot fudge sauce was slightly warm so it would be easy to spread and have some of it drip down the sides. Have you seen these cakes with the ganache dripping? There’s something about them that makes you want to eat that cake ASAP! Apparently, that’s a trend and it makes life way easier to just pour the hot fudge sauce and let it do it’s thing.

We added another layer of sprinkles (because that’s how my kids show their love for their Daddy) and voila! The cake was ready for the birthday boy.

A big shout out to my kids who didn’t spill the sprinkles (I mean the beans) and kept the secret until it was time to unveil their creation. The birthday boy (Daddy)  was thrilled. He said it was the “Best birthday cake ever”.