Enjoy an old-fashioned birthday celebration with a do-it-yourself birthday cake.
Birthdays bring together family and friends to celebrate a special milestone in someone's life. Add a personal touch to birthday celebrations with creative do-it-yourself birthday cakes. Do-it-yourself cakes not only offer a chance to add individual touches to the day's festivities, but they save money because premade or specially ordered cakes are more expensive. Does this Spark an idea?
Creative cakes
If you have time, make your own birthday cake from scratch for a truly old-fashioned style celebration. There are many birthday cake recipes available online. If you're a beginning cook, try a children's cookbook cake recipe because it will be easier. Make frosting with a powdered sugar recipe, and jazz up the cake by coloring the icing with food color. If you are not much of a cook or don't have time, try one of the many boxed cake mixes from your local grocery store. Cake mixes are quick and easy to make and usually just require eggs, oil, water and the boxed mix.
Add accents
Decorating your do-it-yourself birthday cake is the fun part. Let your imagination run wild and try to come up with a color scheme to please the birthday girl. Create your own decorative icing to write with by choosing a contrasting color from the background icing. Put the icing in a plastic bag. Snip the end off the bag and squeeze out the icing to write with or create decorations. Decorate your birthday cake with edible accents such as sprinkles, edible numbers, chocolate chips, red hots, licorice, gum drops and other candy.
Choose a theme
Pick a theme that suits the birthday boy. If he loves sports, for instance, make a soccer ball-shaped cake by using a round cake pan and black and white icing. Find specialty cake pans online or at your local home and cooking store. Pans come in all shapes and sizes, from the traditional circle or rectangle to heart-shaped and butterfly-shaped molds. You can also create your own shape of cake by making a rectangle-shaped cake, and after baking, cut it to the shape you desire, using the extra scraps for accents. For an animal lover, for instance, bake a large sheet cake, and then use a knife to lightly draw a dog's head and torso. Cut out the dog and use the leftover cake to cut four legs and a tail. Seal it all together with icing.
Tags: birthday cake, do-it-yourself birthday, do-it-yourself birthday cake, have time, icing write