An Obsession with Birthday Cake

I am obsessed with my kids’ birthday cakes. I’m obsessed with finding – and making – the perfect cake decorations to suit their age. 

For example, when my oldest turned one, we had an Elmo party. I spent at least ten hours mixing the perfect shade of “no-taste red” icing to decorate 100 Elmo cupcakes, complete with candy eyes and orange slice noses. The cupcakes themselves came from a box mix.

A few years later, I spent almost an entire day melting colored chocolate to hand decorate a barnyard themed cake. I had pigs, cows, horses and ducks, all made out of melted chocolate to celebrate the little guy turning 2. Once again, the cake itself came from a box. 

Earlier this month, the boys turned three and five. My old friend Betty Crocker helped me bake up the cakes (in the shapes of three and five!) in just a few hours. Then came the decorating. Superheroes for the little guy and Power Rangers for the big one. I was so excited to decorate these cakes for them – and see their reactions. 

I spent more than five hours decorating the Superhero cake. I was up until midnight making it perfect. I am still proud of it. It wouldn’t even be passable as a professional cake, but it is a labor of love, and in my head, shows my love for my little guy. A few days later, I spent just more than three hours on the Power Rangers cake. I wasn’t as happy with it, but I knew it was what he wanted. Plus there are a billion different versions of Power Rangers, so there is much room for artistic interpretation. (At least that’s what I told myself when the yellow ranger looked like a football helmet.)

After all of the birthday madness died down, my husband asked me why I spend so much time decorating cakes when they just get eaten and nobody thinks twice about them. He indicated that the boys would be just as happy with a regular eight inch round cake with their name on top.

And it hit me: I love decorating their birthday cakes for them. It makes me happy. But why? And then it hit me again: because that’s what my mom did for me. I hadn’t even realized it, but I was carrying on a tradition from my childhood. 

Each year, my mom beautifully decorating an amazing cake on my birthday. I can’t tell you a single birthday present my parents gave me during my elementary school years, but I can remember every. single. cake. All hand made by my mother, who only ever baked on birthdays and Christmas. It was part of the birthday excitement – to see my cake when I woke up birthday morning. And I had become an unrealizing participant in carrying on that tradition. 

In a world where everything is increasingly competitive to be bigger, better and fancier, I hope that my simple make at home cakes with their semi-fab decorations will someday remind my boys that little things can show more love. That’s what my mom showed me.

What sort of traditions do you carry on from your childhood?