Birthday Cakes

I get bored with store bought birthday cakes as they look so lame so I always ask my boyfriend to get the bakery bought cakes if he can afford it but my daughter asked if we could make a cake yesterday and we went out buying cake mix and icing for a Halloween cake. Its funny because it came out looking more like an Eagles cake (my boyfriends a fan) than Halloween since I only had enough money for one icing color other than the sprinkles and simple sugar decors I had left over home. Cake decorating was always intimidating to me seeing the perfect cakes on the magazines at checkout but I think the only problem I had was the simple things. Like it took me awhile to even do the easy things. I use two circular glass cake dishes to cook in. i would spray them but not flour them enough and they would stick so I would have a ripped of cake stacked on top of another that came out lopsided, lol. I was impatient too so something as easy as letting the cake cool off efficiently destroyed my cake because the icing would not spread right because the cake would not be the right temperature and would tear. Now Im doing everything by the directions and my boyfriend was really impressed my humble little cake (2 layers) and I never put another icing between the too layers and sprinkles in between make it yummier, so I think you would find it fun if you made your own just take your time (not like me who used to rushed).

I always made my kids birthday cakes and that was part of the fun of it. I am not a cake decorator by far and we have made some strange looking and lopsided cakes over the years but it gave us a good laugh and they were edible! LOL They always enjoyed coming up with ideas in the days preceding and we just went for it! This is a penguin cake that came after a few years of experience. Some were not camera worthy!

I used to make them, but just haven't had time the last few years. Tomorrow we are meeting to celebrate my dad's birthday, and I am bringing a Turtle ice cream cake (make with the turtle candies), that I ordered from the store. He isn't a big cake eater and loves turtles and ice cream, so in this case it would be something I could never make, but can still order and bring.

I don't bake cakes. So i have to buy from bakery.

I always would bake my own cakes when I could, but sometimes, because I was working two jobs, this was impossible. What I would do is get a cake from the stores bakery, then add my own touches. You don't have to have a lot of experience decorating cakes to decorate the way that I do it. What I do is go and buy small plastic toys. One year I made my son a dinosaur cake. I used food coloring to make the frosting into grass and water; then, I added a few small plastic trees and bushes to the scene and finally the dinosaurs. He loved the cake ,and he had the dinosaurs to play with the cake was eaten. I have done similar cakes with Dragon Ball Z characters, Pokemon, princesses, bunnies and other animals. Just use your imagination. Coconut makes great grass, just add a little green food coloring (but my daughter won't eat coconut so I can't use it.) Crush up some Oreos for dirt. Build snowmen out of marshmallows. Just think about things that your child loves when you are decorating, who says that a cake has to look like it was done by a professional. I always felt that it should look like it was made especially for the child, that is what makes it the genuine celebration of love and life. GOOD LUCK, and have fun!!!

When I was growing up, my mother made cakes every weekend. I didn't appreciate her scratch cakes as a kid (I took them for granted). Because scratch cakes were always around, my brother and I wanted a cake from the bakery. Because that was what we wanted, my mother bought them for us for our birthday. When I had my own kids, I did the samething. I don't think there's anything wrong buying cakes...it doesn't take anything away nor makes the birthday seem commercial. It's all in what's preferred.

We almost always get store bought - birthdays are usually too hectic to have time to bake a cake.

I always buy birthday cakes for myself and my family from the store, as I'm not very good at making cakes, so I am sure that they would enjoy a cake that was made at a store a lot more than they would enjoy anything that I made! I think store cakes are great because you can get themed cakes, which are popular with the children!