I have never really loved my birthday. It’s not an aversion to aging, I’m perfectly fine with that. I just dislike having any attention focused on me. I especially hate having “Happy Birthday” sung to me. All three of my children also really dislike having it sung to them. We’re a family of silent cake eaters, except for my husband, who enjoys a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday, so we indulge him on his birthday.
I decided that it’s really sad to dislike your birthday, so a few years ago I decided to focus on embracing the day by spending it doing something I really love. I began baking my own birthday cake. Some might think it’s pitiful to have to bake your own cake, but this way, I get exactly what I want.
I usually spend several days researching and thinking about what kind of cake I want to create. These are not simple cakes. The first birthday cake I made for myself was “Pam’s Carrot Cake.” Subsequent years brought more complex cakes. There was the epic Brown Butter Salted Caramel Crunch Cake of 2016 and legendary (in our family, at least) Caramel Honeycomb Birthday Cake of 2017.
The crunch in this cake comes from toffee. I made my own toffee from sugar, corn syrup, cream and butter. If you’re pressed for time, you could substitute Skor bits, but making my own was part of my birthday therapy.
The banana cake in this recipe is not a light and fluffy sponge. It’s dense and super moist thanks to ripe bananas and sour cream. My frosting of choice was a Milk Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream. If you have never made a meringue based buttercream, you owe it to yourself to give it a try. It is less sweet than a typical American buttercream, which is made from icing sugar and butter. If you’re curious to learn more, this is an excellent primer on the various types of buttercream.
I made the toffee crunch, buttercream and cake layers the day before my birthday, and spent most of my birthday assembling, styling, videoing and photographing the assembly. In short, a glorious day of creative fulfillment.
I piped the buttercream on in gentle waves, using a leaf tip (Wilton #104). I have been excited to try this technique ever since I first saw it in Tessa Huff’s glorious new book, “Icing on the Cake.”
