Birthday Cake

After seeing “birthday cake” everywhere, and being really confused about how “birthday cake” could be a smell or flavour of its own, I did some research. Turns out, birthday cake is just vanilla cake with sprinkles! The birthday cake flavour is really just the strong and familiar scent of artificial vanilla flavouring. I’ve been getting a lot of requests for birthday cakes with birthday cake flavour and sprinkles. I am really loving the whole design process of these cakes and how they are coming out. This particular cake is going to be a vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream — using real vanilla extract of course.

Vanilla cake and buttercream is the most basic flavour (in a good way) because it is simple, but delicious. It is the choice for most people since it is a flavour everyone is familiar with.

What I’m really trying to say is that because vanilla cake is so simple, it has to be done well or else it will just be bad. Vanilla is a delicate flavour, and a vanilla cake can be amazing if done right. It has to be fluffy, not too sweet, and moist. You can achieve this by proper mixing, baking, and storage. Keep in mind a cake will start drying out as soon as it comes out of the oven, so I like to bake my cakes fresh and cover in simple syrup & buttercream as soon as it’s cooled down to keep the moisture and texture.

Confetti Vanilla Cake

Time: prep 20, bake 35-45
Difficulty: easy
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This recipe makes 2 x 8″ round cakes

Ingredients

250g (1 cup) soft butter
440g (2-1/4 cup) sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
385g (3 cups) flour
15g (1 tbsp) baking powder
5g (1 tsp) salt
275mL (1-1/8 cup) milk
5mL (1 tsp) vanilla extract
40g (1/4 cup) sprinkles

Method

Grease your cake pans with butter and line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper.
Preheat your oven to 180C/350F
In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, cream your butter and sugar on medium speed until pale and fluffy.
Add in your eggs one at a time, scraping the bottom of the bowl between mixing. Beat on high-speed until pale and fluffy.
Sift and whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
Combine milk and vanilla.
Add in half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture. Mix on low-speed until some of the flour is absorbed into the butter (about 15 seconds)
Add in all the wet ingredients, and mix on low-speed for another 15 seconds.
Add in all the remaining dry ingredients, first mixing on low-speed until most of the dry ingredients have absorbed most of the wet ingredients. Turn your mixer on high-speed for 15 seconds to quickly incorporate all the ingredients and create a smooth batter.
Take the bowl off the stand mixer and hand-fold any remaining bits of butter at the bottom of the bowl.
Fold in sprinkles quickly and right before placing in pans so the colour doesn’t bleed too much into the batter.
Divide the batter evenly between your cake pans and bake for 35-45 or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

I decorated my cake using Italian meringue buttercream using some Wilton blue and red gel colours, and a Wilton 6B french tip in a piping bag. I love this cake because of how simple yet stunning it can be, while still being highly achievable for others!