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.”
On May 19 2009, I wrote my first blog post . Today marks my 500th! I never set out to write a blog. It happened accidentally. I joined an online group who were baking their way through Peter Reinhart’s tome, “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice”. I was hoping to increase my bread baking skills beyond the simple challah I baked each Friday.
The premise of the group was that we would work our way through the book, alphabetically, from Anadama Bread to Whole Wheat , one loaf each week, for 43 weeks. Group members would share their experiences in a Google group. I noticed that some members were chronicling their journey via blogging. It seemed like a cool idea, so I stayed up all night and figured out, with the help of wordpress.com, how to do it.
Here is a shot from that first post. My bread turned out perfectly, but clearly my photography skills needed work. There were 212 of us, from all over the world, who started the challenge together. Only 12 of us actually finished! I loved the whole process! At heart, I think I am a born storyteller, so blogging really spoke to my soul. I love to create, so baking, taking photos of the process and telling stories about it really fed my creative needs.
After I finished my final loaf, I just kept on blogging. Along the way, I bought a better camera, took some online classes in food writing, and photography and attended several workshops on food styling and photography. One of the best investments I ever made was purchasing this online course from Rachel Korinek, of Two Loves Studio. She is an amazing teacher and extremely generous with her time. I have also been inspired by the effervescent Bea Lubas. Her ability to tell stories is unparalleled.
Another outstanding teacher is Joanie Simon of The Bite Shop. Her youtube videos on food photography, released every Thursday, are the highlight of my week. I have learned so many tips and techniques from her. All of these mentors have helped me along my journey, but the most important tip I have learned is practice and perseverance. Nothing replaces these.
With 500 blog posts under my belt, I am excited to see where the next 500 take me. I have a loyal group of followers who encourage me by leaving me questions and comments. Thanks from the bottom of my heart. It’s so nice to know someone is out there reading what I’m writing!
I am so grateful for the community of food bloggers and photographers. For the most part, they are people who are generous of spirit. I adore the trait of generosity. My fellow food bloggers and photographers share knowledge and offer gentle and constructive criticism as well as heaps of praise. I feel like I have found my tribe.
To celebrate this milestone I decided that a special cake was in order. This cake is quite spectacular. It starts with three layers of moist apple spice cake. Each layer is covered in silky cinnamon Swiss meringue buttercream. To finish this gorgeous cake, I added a drizzle of apple cider caramel. The cake batter is crammed full of diced apples. I used three huge Honeycrisp for mine. When you mix the batter together you will think you made a mistake because it is so thick. It basically looks like bits of diced apples, barely held together by batter. Don’t worry. As the cake bakes, the apples release their moisture and your cake will be perfect.
This cake recipe is barely adapted from John’s recipe on The Preppy Kitchen. His knowledge of cake baking is mind-boggling. He taught me about cake strips. They help prevent domed and cracked tops and over-cooked edges. I went with a silky Swiss meringue buttercream, accented with cinnamon. While admittedly a bit more work than a simple American buttercream, I just adore the light and velvety texture of a Swiss meringue buttercream. If you are curious, here is everything you ever wanted to know about buttercream from the über-talented Stella Parks.
For the shiny caramel drizzle recipe, I went straight to Tessa Huff’s gorgeous book, Layered, for inspiration. In a traditional caramel sauce, you use water and white sugar. Tessa suggests reduced apple cider and brown sugar instead. The tang of apple cider is perfectly balanced by the toasty notes of brown sugar in the cooked caramel. It really helps to offset the sweetness of the buttercream.
Truthfully, we didn’t drink the Prosecco (in the first photo of this post) with this cake. My first slice I had with some ice cold milk, and the second (and third, if we’re being honest), I had with tea. My fourth slice I just ate standing in front of the fridge. I ended up making this cake three times, before I got it exactly where I wanted it, so we had lots of cake. Even the mistakes were delicious. The first cake was served at our Rosh Hashanah dinner, with a birthday candle for my cousin Barbara. The second and third cakes were sliced, photographed and then wrapped and sent off to my husband’s office, where most of my baked goods go to have a happy ending.
