Why Buy When You Can Make a Delicious and Gorgeous Cake at Home? Learn How to Make and Decorate Cakes for Birthday at Home with Easy to Follow Recipes (2019)

Why Buy When You Can Make a Delicious and Gorgeous Cake at Home? Learn How to Make and Decorate Cakes for Birthday at Home with Easy to Follow Recipes (2019)

Making a cake holds a fascination for most but sometimes even seasoned cooks are hesitant to bake because of a cake that failed to rise or they don't quite know how to make one look good. Put away those fears of baking and read on to learn easy to follow cake recipes and simple yet effective tricks to make your cake look pretty in no time. Even if you decide to go with a recipe of your own, our useful tips can make all the different between an okay and a great cake!

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Easy Tricks to Decorate Birthday Cakes at Home

Are you planning to celebrate yours or a loved one's birthday pretty soon? Then you should try to bake a delicious and beautiful looking birthday cake at home to add a personal touch to your celebrations. Yes, we know, it is far easier ordering a gorgeous (and tasty!) cake than making one, but you don't have to bake one like the professionals. Fortunately there are plenty of hacks to get a fantastic cake without the know-how of great baking. Making a birthday cake is not all that tough, you just need to be a little creative.

Remember baking is a science and that means if you perfectly measure all the ingredients and follow the instructions precisely, nothing can stop you from making a delicious cake. Now, if you are thinking that maybe baking a cake is something you can pull off, but decorating a birthday cake is a very difficult job, then we would say think again because if you use the following ideas to decorate it, then you can design a stunning cake.

Use Kit Kat

Kit Kat is one of the most delicious and popular chocolates in the market and is easily available in your local grocery store. Now, if you are confused that how can you decorate your birthday cake with the help of this chocolate wafer, then it’s very easy. You should get lots of Kit Kat chocolate bars and use them to cover sides of your cake in a straight line.

Start by covering the sides of your cake with a ganache or buttercream frosting which will act as a glue and help the bars stick to the sides of the cake. By doing this you can create a beautiful chocolate fence around your cake. If you want to decorate the top of your cake further, then you can just dump lots of colorful gems on it, mix things up with a few Ferrero Rochers and other chocolate and candy of your choice.

Finish with a ribbon tied around the cake to keep the bars in place and to make it look more appealing. In just a few minutes you can decorate your cake and can even elevate the taste of your birthday cake.

Buttercream Frosting

If you want to decorate your birthday cake in the traditional manner, then you can whip up a batch of buttercream at home to decorate your cake. The wonderful thing about buttercream is you can add flavours and colours to it and customise it in endless ways. For the uninitiated, there are many kinds of buttercream - Swiss, German, French, Italian, American and so on! Here we've given you a basic recipe to start with but the more adventurous may want to progress to making the other kinds.

Making Buttercream at Home

  • Ingredients:
  • Half cup of unsalted butter, softened
  • 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
  • Two cups of confectioner sugar
  • 2 tbsp warm milk
  • Food color of your choice

  • How to make it:
  • Gently cream the butter till it's nice and fluffy, gradually adding sugar as you mix. Add the milk and food color and continue beating till you have a soft, smooth and slightly fluffy mix. If the temperature in your home is warm, you may need to chill the buttercream for a short while before using but take care not to refrigerate it too long as it will harden. The texture you're looking for is a firmer version of whipped cream. Use it to layer your cake, cover it, or simple put it in a piping bag and make swirls or rosettes on your cake.

Use Nuts

To make your cake crunchy and rich, you can use lots of different nuts to decorate it. You can finely chop or grind nuts in the grinder, then over your buttercream frosting, you can easily sprinkle nuts on the top and sides of your cake according to your desire. Remember one thing, when you are using nuts to decorate the cake, then match nuts with the flavor of your cake. Such as carrot cake goes well with walnuts and for chocolate flavored cake pecans are a good match. Use whole nuts for effect but for the sake of eating, don't leave too many large pieces on.

Dust with Icing Sugar

If you are seeking a quick and beautiful way to decorate your cake, then icing sugar is the best idea. You can dust icing sugar freely over your cake, to add patterns to the cake, you can cut templates using butter paper and dust icing sugar over to create shapes. You can even make icing sugar paste by adding water to create the perfect drizzling effect over a large birthday cake. When you are dusting icing sugar over your cake, make sure that cake is completely cold otherwise the icing sugar will melt.

Use Fresh Flowers

If you want to make your cake look beautiful, then yes, you can raid your garden or buy some fresh flowers to decorate your cake. You can select from rose petals to lavender flowers to design your cake. Such flowers will make your cake look pretty and fabulous. If you're worried about bugs and chemicals on the flowers, there's a whole bunch of edible flowers and microgreens grown specially to decorate food and you can try your local retailers to see if you can find any. If you can't get your hands on any, try dried flowers, or even edible flowers made from sugar for cake decoration. These are very popular and your local bake shop may have them.

Cookies to the Rescue!

Okay, so if you don’t want to buy extra stuff to decorate your birthday cake, then you can steal some cookies from your cookie jar. You can use different shapes of cookies to design your cake like cream cookies, sugar cookies, etc. Moreover, if you know how to bake cookies at home, then bake some to add freshness to your cake. For winter days, a piece of cookie cake with the cup of hot cocoa is a perfect delicacy.

Use Fresh Fruit with a Drizzle of Chocolate

If you want to make a refreshing and light cake to sooth your taste buds in hot summery days, then using fresh tropical fruits is going to be a splendid choice. You can use fresh raspberries, strawberries, kiwi, mangoes, etc., as topping on your cake to add a pinch of freshness. However, you can make your cake even more delicious by adding chocolate drizzle over fruits. You can melt one chocolate bar in the microwave and with the help of spoon can drizzle it over your whole cake.

5 Easy Homemade Birthday Cake Recipes

If you want to bake a special birthday cake at home for your loved ones, then you can easily do that. You just have to follow the easy birthday cake recipes mentioned and bake one delicious cake for your family and friends.

Simple Cooker Cake

If you want to make a special birthday cake for your loved one, but you don’t have an oven or a microwave, then no need to feel sad. That’s because you can easily bake a beautiful birthday cake in your pressure cooker. Yep, using pressure cook you make a one really delicious cake at home.

Pressure Cooker Cake

  • Ingredients:
  • 3 cups of all-purpose flour
  • 2 cup powdered sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • One cup butter
  • 2 tbsps baking soda and vanilla essence
  • 2 cups milk

  • How to make it
  • Mix sugar and butter together until it’s light and fluffy. Once done, then add two beaten eggs into the mixture and whisk well so that the mixture gets light.
  • Sift flour and baking soda together and add to the egg mixture. If required some milk to make batter fluffy and soft. Now, add vanilla essence and mix well.
  • Grease baking pan with flour or oil before putting the mixture into it. Don’t add water in the cooker and make sure that pan doesn’t touch the base of the cooker. Put the pan on inverted steel dish. Remove the whistle of the cooker and cook on low flame for about 35-40 minutes.
  • Insert knife to check whether the cake is cooked or not.
  • Remove cake from pan and allow to cool completely before slicing and decorating

Easy Oven-Baked Chocolate Birthday Cake

For kids' birthdays, you can bake the delicious chocolate cake in your oven. Chocolate cake is appreciated by everyone so it’s a perfect birthday cake after the vanilla cake.

Chocolate Cake

  • Ingredients:
  • 4 tbsps of all-purpose flour
  • 2 tbsps cocoa
  • 1 tbsps of sugar and a dash of salt
  • 1 1/8 tbsps vanilla extract and baking powder
  • 4 tbsps water
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil

  • How to make it:
  • Stir together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, water, and oil until the batter is smooth and chocolate-colored.
  • Put together battle into a greased pan to bake and bake for 13-15 minutes until you see the sides of the cake separated from the pan. Cool down your cake and decorate as you desire.

Eggless Mango Cake

Mangoes are the most commonly available tropical fruits in India. So, if you want to bake something refreshing for a hot summer day, then you can try eggless mango cake recipe for sure.

Eggless Mango Cake

  • Ingredients for mango cake:
  • 1.5 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 tbsps baking powder
  • ½ tbsp baking soda
  • 100 grams of unsalted butter
  • 200 grams Alphonso mango and milk
  • 3-4 tbsps sugar
  • 1 tbsps vanilla extract

  • How to make cake:
  • In a pan, add whole wheat flour, baking powder, and baking soda and sift them together.
  • Chop and peel two large mangoes. Purée them with some sugar and make smooth purée.
  • Now, melt unsalted butter in the separate pan and add condensed milk in it. Stir very well to make a smooth homogeneous mixture. Add, mango purée and vanilla extract in the mixture. Stir mixture to make it smooth and add flour in it. To smooth the batter you can add milk in it.
  • Now place pan in an over preheated to 350 degrees and bake for 40-44 minutes till the top starts to get brown.

Homemade Strawberry Cake

If you want to bake a delicious yet healthy strawberry cake for your kid’s birthday party, then you can easily bake the mouth-watering strawberry cake at home.

Strawberry Cake

  • Ingredients to bake strawberry are:
  • 2 cup of refined flour
  • 2 tbsps baking powder and ½ baking soda
  • 1 tbsps salt
  • ¾ cup unsalted butter
  • 1 and ¾ cup granulated sugar
  • 5 large egg whites
  • 1/3 cup cream or yogurt
  • 1/2 cup whole milk
  • 1/2 cup reduced strawberry purée

  • How to make it
  • Cook and reduce strawberries to a purée and let it cool.
  • Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking pan.
  • In one pan mix cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another pan, beat butter, egg whites, strawberry puree, milk, and cream together until it’s smooth.
  • Pour batter evenly into cake pans. Bake for around 24-25 minutes or until the cakes are baked through. To test for doneness, insert a toothpick into the center of the cake.

Coffee Cake

For your coffee addicted best friend, you can quickly whip up a coffee birthday cake at home. Layer it with a chocolate ganache or frosting to get a delicious cake.

Coffee Cake

  • Ingredients:
  • 170 g each of caster sugar, refined flour and butter
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 tbsp baking powder and instant coffee

  • Method to bake coffee cake:
  • Preheat oven to 140 degrees and grease baking pan. Add sugar and butter in a bowl and whisk until it becomes fluffy.
  • Whisk eggs separately and add them slowly to the mixture with flour. When the eggs have been fully combined into the mix, add the rest of the flour and the baking powder and fold it in gently.
  • Add dissolved coffee into the batter and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Cake Baking Tips for First Time and Seasoned Bakers

Okay, if you don’t want to make any goof ups in your cake, then you need to consider a few basic things which are applicable in every cake recipes. By following these tips, you can make very easily at home and that’s without any issue.

Use a Good Recipe

Baking a cake is no less than a science experiment. If you want to make a perfect cake, then you have to follow the cake recipe very precisely. You have to measure the ingredients properly as mentioned in the recipe and you have to add ingredients on the right time as mentioned in the recipe. Before baking, read recipe throughout and mark all the pressure and important points. You should carefully read the whole recipe and before baking the cake.

Preheat the Oven to the Right Temperature

You should always preheat your oven before starting your cake making process. That’s because if you don’t put the cake in the preheated oven, then it will affect the rise of your cake sponge. The fan present over the oven can dry your cake mixture quickly so for longer shelf life always use the preheated oven.

Measure Ingredients Properly

Always use the exact measurements and ingredients as mentioned in the recipe which you are following. You can’t add anything out of the measurement into your cake. If you want your cake to be perfectly moist and fluffy, then you have to every ingredient as per states. Use measure spoon to measure the exact amount of ingredients. Moreover, always use the same measuring tool when you make the cake so that you can develop consistency.

Stick to Cooking Times

You should strictly follow the cooking time mentioned in your recipe. The variety of your oven might slightly affect the cooking time that’s why always check cake before the end of the cooking time. The perfectly cooked cake feels same from the center and from the edges when lightly pressed. You can use the sleek sliver knife to check the cake, you can put a knife in the middle of your cake and if it comes out clean, then your cake is ready.

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From our editorial team

Don't be afraid to be creative

Baking can be a little intimidating for new bakers and for those who haven't had the best results. Get over that fear and try to think of ways to prepare the final cake once you're done baking it. The sponge or cake base is just the beginning and you have to treat it like your canvas. It's what you do after that makes a really good cake. So pay attention to instructions for making the cake then put on your artist's hat and rely on your own food instincts to turn it into a masterpiece. Even a less than perfect cake can be turned into something truly delicious.