This is the second part of my dad’s informal little family birthday party.

Birthday cakes are a big deal to me. I’ve made colourful cakes, mini cakes, Fourth of July cakes, ice cream cakes and fruitcakes. I think that a cake is the pinnacle of a party. There is nothing more beautiful than a cake done properly.

Achieving this beauty is something that I have failed at previously, and strived to get better at ever since. Need an illustration of said failure? Well, you asked!

Point is, I don’t take cake-making lightly. Which is why I wanted my dad’s birthday cake to be perfect. He requested carrot cake and so, off I went to browse the big ol’ World Wide Web for something worthy of my time, attention, and family. I found this. Simple and impressive.

There’s something about a tiered cake that really gets me going. It’s like the epic journey of cake making. This would make Odysseus proud. Carrot cake is also just about the most low maintenance, inexpensive desserts out there. Plus there’s vegetables in it. You know how I like cake vegetables.

I don’t really have much else to say about this dessert, except for that it somehow managed to be both light and fluffy while also including so many delicious different textures, like pineapple, pecans and coarsely grated carrot. The cream cheese icing was so smoothly soft and was sweetened just so.

Dad liked.

Oh yes, and this recipe also made four little cupcakes. They have been hidden in the deep freeze, only to be snuck out at the most sugar desperate of times.

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On a scale of one to ten, one being foods like cauliflower and lamb (sometimes I feel as though I’m the only meat-eater on the plant who doesn’t like the latter) and ten being arugula, mushrooms and cookies with a dash of lemon, cakes in jars rank in at a 12.

I hope that sentence made sense. I’m worried that it did not, so let me summarize.

Cakes baked in cute little jars are wonderful.

I was in a baking mood this past Saturday. Having made another batch of cookies for my special cookie gift bags (that post is coming up), I decided I didn’t want to leave the kitchen. The stove was making my legs feel fuzzy and warm. So, I did what any reasonable person would do, I decided to bake a cake. Luckily my baking buzz lined up perfectly with my friend Emily’s birthday.

I’m not sure what was once in this jar. I suspect it was marmalade, however, all reminders of its former life were erased when I used it to carry hummus to school when we ran out of Tupperware containers. What a multi-functional little jar.

I’m mildly concerned that the end product was too much cake and not enough icing, so I’ll have to work on tweaking my cake-in-jar logistics for next time. Oh yes, there will be a next time. I’m thinking some sort of layered trifle.

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So I’m 22. Holy. I remember when the big 2-2 was just another number in my 11x table. A lot has changed since elementary school multiplication drills.

To celebrate that I’m one year closer to death, a year older and therefore 366 days more awesome, I decided to bake myself a cake. A four-tiered, rainbow cake with chocolate whipping cream frosting, that is.

To be fair, it wasn’t all for me. My friend Christine‘s birthday is a day before mine. This year we decided to have joint birthday festivities at her house. It’s practically a tradition that I bring a kick ass cake to her place. You may remember this little gem from last year’s Fourth of July in March party.

Anyways, we were turning 22. And 22 means adult. And adult means CAKE KINGDOM. Right?

Right. I’m a year older and more wise, remember? This means I’m never wrong.

The layers were made using Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake recipe. It’s my all-time favourite and creates a light and fluffy base with just a hint of lemon flavouring.

Note when making a four-tiered cake: buy a real cake pan. 

Please listen to me, it will make your life so much easier. If you have an oven that bakes things evenly, buy four pans and bake all the layers at once. All the power to you! Just don’t use a springform pan and bake each layer one at a time. Otherwise, four hours later you will find yourself transformed into a kitchen zombie waiting for that final blue layer to be complete. Le sigh.

Since I didn’t want to spend $20 to make a luscious buttercream icing for this cake (because, lets face it, when you have FOUR layers, that’s a lot of butter), I opted for a light, chocolate whipped cream frosting. There is half a litre of whipped cream on this cake.

Whipping cream turned out to be the perfect choice. It meant the finished product wasn’t unbearably sweet and was far easier to spread than traditional buttercream icing. Which is ideal for someone who is god awful at icing cakes. There is a layer of whipping cream in between every layer, as well as a thin spreading of four-berry jam. Got to amp up the fruit (sugar) content, you know.

The finished cake was possibly the girliest thing I’ve ever made, and looked like a cross between a dessert worthy of Barbie’s wedding and an Easter egg hunt. It also would have been appropriate for a five-year-old’s birthday party. What can I say? I’m getting older age-wise, but my baking is regressing in maturity appeal alongside.

And to that I say: Happy fifth birthday, Hilary!

PS: A few of my friends made me a surprise birthday dinner! How sweet are they? Here we are… thanks to Freya for taking the picture!

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