My birthday is tomorrow, so let’s talk birthday cake! From elaborate layer cakes to ice cream cakes to marble cupcakes to cookie cakes, the cake you choose to have at your birthday celebration is highly personal. Some people have the same thing every year. Others, myself included, like to change it up. No matter which camp you fall into, I have loads of cake recipes for you in my archives. Here are some of my absolute favorites.
Black Forest Cake {Schwarzvaldtårta}
While feeling homesick on my birthday last year, I decided to recreate a Swiss-style Black Forest Cake that is hugely popular in my hometown. You won’t find any cherries or chocolate cake here, just layers of airy almond dacquoise, whipped cream and dark chocolate. It also happens to be naturally gluten-free and so, so good. I’ll be having the real deal for my birthday this year (lucky me!), but this homemade version hits the spot if you’re not near Fort Worth, Texas.
Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Cake
Who doesn’t love ice cream cake? This one is simple as can be, starting with sandwiching mint chocolate chip ice cream with two layers of chocolate cake, then finishing it with whipped cream and anything else you like! Feel free to change up the ice cream flavor or just use this as a template and change the recipe completely. There is no wrong way to ice cream cake.
When I was a kid, all the best birthday parties involved cookie cake. The same is true as an adult. I have Brown Butter Chocolate Chip, Chocolate M&Ms and Red Velvet Cookie Cakes in my archives, but this almost-36 year-old could really go for these colorful, miniature Funfetti Cookie Cupcakes right now!
We all know a red velvet person. I usually save it for Oscar Night, but I think these Red Velvet Marble Cupcakes would fit the bill for birthdays too!
Gluten-Free Vegan Chocolate Cake
This chocolate cake is a thing to behold. Made with all vegan, gluten-free ingredients and stacked tall with vegan chocolate buttercream, it might just surprise you and become a favorite.
Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting
Something about Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting screams “birthday” to so many people. Mine is made with very good things like sour cream and brown sugar, mixed using the reverse creaming method, and finished with an irresistible chocolate frosting.
Not quite ready to start celebrating with larger groups yet? A mini layer cake might be the perfect solution! This tutorial has everything you need to make a birthday cake for 4-6 people.
This is the cake for that person in your life who’s a little extra. The one who likes all the bells and whistles and would enjoy slicing into a cake full of candy—this cake is for that person. Also? Hi, I’m that person.
Have you made these or any of my other chocolate chip treats? Let me know in the comments or on social media!
How cute are these Easter Egg Hunt Cupcakes?! They’re a miniature version of the towering surprise-inside 
Easter Egg Hunt Cupcakes start with the same vanilla sour cream cupcake base I used for my 
Before frosting, each cupcake is filled with sprinkles for a surprise effect. To achieve this, a cone-shaped piece of cake is cut out of the top of each cupcake, leaving behind just enough room for a teaspoon of sprinkles. Then the little conical toppers are trimmed into disks so that they fit right back on top of the cupcakes, concealing the surprise inside. Once the cupcakes are frosted, the cut-outs won’t be visible, making it all the more fun when your family and friends bite in and sprinkles come running out!
Like the layer cake that inspired them, these cupcakes are frosted with green-tinted vanilla buttercream and decorated with little Easter scenes made of green coconut “grass,” egg-shaped candies and Peeps bunnies.
I can’t get over how festive these are! I say this about at least one recipe a year, but these might be the cutest things I’ve ever made. And maybe soon they’ll be the cutest things you’ve ever made.
This marks the first time I’ve posted a new cupcake recipe on here in more than 
Before I get to how these cupcakes get their marble, let’s discuss red velvet on its own. This southern flavor is divisive; some love it, some hate it, and some love to hate it. I obviously love it, as evidenced by years of red velvet treats for 
Now for the marbling! Here, red velvet cake batter is swirled into delicious vanilla sour cream cupcakes. These little cakes are moist and springy and out-of-this-world good. They are assembled from just one batter—the red velvet is made by stirring cocoa powder, a tablespoon of milk and red food coloring into a small portion of the vanilla mixture. Both colors are scooped into the cupcake pans, then swirled together before baking.
As for the cream cheese frosting, I had originally planned to keep it completely traditional, but ultimately decided to continue the marble motif, dying half the frosting red and flavoring it with a hint of cocoa for maximum red velvet realness.
To achieve a marbled/swirled frosting effect, I loaded both colors into the same piping bag, doing my best to keep them on separate sides. You can purchase specialty piping bags for this, or use two smaller bags in a larger bag, but I took the easy way out and also tried to let go of the outcome. Baking is much more fun when you let go of the outcome. I totally love how they all turned out a bit differently!
These cupcakes, y’all! If you or your valentine(s) are into red velvet, you’re going to love them. The vanilla portion is delicious, but that chocolate-vanilla hint of red velvet really takes the (cup)cake!
Full disclosure, I am tired. Like in-my-bones tired. It’s been a long week and I haven’t been sleeping well and I just can’t seem to get my brain to concentrate on this blog post. I would say I’m trying my best, but I am actually trying as much as I absolutely have to and not the tiniest bit more. It’s that sort of day.
I usually take pride in writing a “real” blog post, but was tempted today to just leave it at “Um, hi. I took cookie cake and threw sprinkles in there and made it smaller. Oh, and there’s a plume of vanilla buttercream on each one. Funfetti Cookie Cupcakes, y’all!” …and leave it at that. I mean, that about sums it up, right?
Well, almost. It doesn’t tell you that these Funfetti Cookie Cupcakes were born because I deeply miss baking for groups. I really wanted to make a cookie cake for weeks, but resisted because who would I share it with?
That rambling, incoherent, grammatically incorrect blurb says nothing of how the exteriors of these little cookie cakes crackle ever-so-slightly against your teeth when you first bite in, or how the centers are a tad underbaked and chewy like 
There’s no mention of how much I absolutely love 
And speaking of single servings, that half-assed blog “post” I wanted to write has one more gross oversight. These are perfect for socially-distanced celebrating or for delivering to someone you love and can’t really see right now. It doesn’t tell you that even though you bake all the time, even when you are tired and feel uninspired, making these will feel nothing like work and completely like joy. And how even when you’re a completely depleted puddle of a human who needs a weekend so badly it’s ridiculous, you’ll find a way to find the words to say it all.
Cake week, y’all. It gets me every time. The last week of every month is full of cake orders, and between those and my day job, this blog always seems to get shoved to the side. Perhaps one day I’ll be more organized. Or be able to afford an assistant.
Surely by now you’ve seen candy corn cupcakes on Pinterest and other social media. The gist is that vanilla cake batter is dyed orange and yellow, baked into cupcakes, and topped with white vanilla buttercream. Sure, the cupcakes are cute and festive, but for a candy corn aficionado like myself, they leave something to be desired. Namely, the very distinct flavor of candy corn.
What does candy corn taste like? Well, mostly it’s just sweet–so sweet, in fact, that it’s hard to detect any real flavor. Many brands of the stuff boast that they are made with “real honey” (as opposed to all that fake honey). Armed with this information, I figured a honey-vanilla cake batter was a good place to start. However, when I tasted the batter before baking, I found the flavor to be lacking a little. My 
The frosting is just my vanilla buttercream doctored up with a little honey (and the extract). It’s luxuriously light and fluffy, and oh, how I wish my cake decorating skills could make it look as delicious as it is. You’ll just have to take my word for it (or better–make it!). Although it does look pretty good sort of drooping over the tops of these cupcakes.
e2 bakes brooklyn 