Did you have a birthday cake every year as a child? How old are you now? Was it homemade or bought?

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I was reading the thread about Dermot not eating the caterpillar cake and it’s got me thinking. I don’t like chocolate roll type cakes and never have. They taste like chemicals and disappointment. However, I think I might be holding a grudge against them because I never had one as a child. I can remember 2 birthday cakes in my lifetime and I’m 49. One my mum had someone make for my birthday when I appear to have had a party at around age 4 or 5. It was a chocolate cake basket filled with Dolly mixtures. The second one was for my 21st birthday and made by the local cake shop. I think my grandparents might have paid for it.

I didn’t have parties as a child. I can remember only one where I hid from my friends at first. I was diagnosed autistic last year which explains that one. My parents struggled financially but I just don’t think we were a party family. Perhaps that’s why there was a lack of birthday cakes even though my mum baked cakes for cake sales and her cakes were always lovely.

My own children have had a homemade cake every year. Decorated in the theme of whatever they are most into at the time. Some rather ambitious like a three-tiered Disney Fairies cake for DD’s birthday. For her first birthday she had one made by the same shop that made my 21st cake and it was dry and didn’t go very far whilst costing a fortune so I vowed to always make one each year.

Did you have a birthday cake every year? Do you remember them? Were they homemade? Do you dc have a birthday cake each year?

I think I might be hungry and a bit obsessed with cake this morning! I’m making a chocolate fudge cake later for Easter and having given up chocolate for lent I’m quite looking forward to a slice tomorrow.

I don’t feel deprived by the way, because I didn’t have birthday cakes as a child. Our family just didn’t really do them. My sister had a fancy one for her 21st made by my lovely Nana who was an amazing baker. Lots of royal icing which was the only bit I’d eat because it was fruit cake. That was back in the 80s.

Have things changed now and children have more birthday parties so therefore more cakes?

So many cake questions but the final one: what was your favourite birthday cake?

Thank you for indulging my Saturday morning cake musings.

I remember one every year and when I was younger my nan used to make them and I'd go through her cake book and pick one out, they were always fabulous! As I got older, and still now I like a chocolate cake!

I never had a birthday cake as a child. I'm the youngest of four and the only birthday cake I can remember was my just older brother got a 9th birthday cake (homemade, of course).

My mum typically did baking every day so there was often a cake (Victoria Sponge) to come home to. A birthday cake wouldn't have been particularly special, and no way would my dad allow lit candles in the house.

Always had a cake of whatever I was into at the time. I remember a doll cake which was a huge skirt with a Barbie type doll. A Shakin Stevens cake. ET was another i remember. There was a cake shop in town that did birthday cakes and it’s still
goinh strong. I’m 52 now

To see if birthday cakes were more common in some generations but it appears not.
My mum thinks my children are very lucky to have a homemade birthday cake each year so I guess it wasn’t common in her childhood either although she was born just before WW2 broke out and my Nana was on her own while my grandad was away in the war. I think we either do as our parents did or the total opposite on many things.
I did ask mum to make the chocolate button cake from the Hamlyn All Colour Cook Book when I was about 8 so 1984 but I think it was for the cake competition at the air show.
I always wanted a hedgehog cake so maybe I’ll make one for bonfire night this year.
We did used to make butterfly cakes and fairy cakes together. Just not for birthdays. I want to make butterfly cakes now. Thank you for those who mentioned them and gave me nice memories.

My mum made my birthday cakes as a child and they were lovely. We do a mix for our children - of the 15 birthdays they’ve had, my mum has made 2, my husband 4, a professional cake maker 3 and the rest have been shop bought. I fully outsource this as I can’t bake!

My memory of birthday cakes as a kid was we could make any request for a theme and my mum would make it. One in particular I remember was a swimming pool cake for my swimming party, with blue jelly on top. I'm 48.

This carried into my life as a parent, I always made a themed cake for each of my 3 kids based on what they were into at the time. I've made trains, princesses, a Frozen themed mountain, BB8 from Star Wars, Perry the Platypus, a T-rex, a space rocket and more.

Since their teen years,and the discovery of our favourite sweet treat, chocolate brownie with raspberry cream and meringue, we have to have that for every birthday now and no more themes required. It's a lot easier but I kind of miss it.

No, not at all. I had one for my 13th birthday and a croquenbusch for my 18th.

My mother made puddings and cakes only when visitors came. I recall once coming home from school and she was making a cake and i said 'Oh! Who ios coming for dinner?' and she went batshit at me and started screaming that i was implying she was a neglectful mother. (She was at that time severely mentally ill and self medicating with alcohol and did not take proper medication until is was in my late 20s).

I don't make cakes either though. DH makes a cake for the DCs for their birthdays. But not every year as neither are that interested in it.

I don't remember ever having a birthday cake... but I've never thought about it before! My birthday was during term time, which didn't help, and I was at boarding school from the age of 7, which also didn't help.

My children are adults with their own children now and I still make them a cake every year, in fact I do a whole birthday meal of whatever they want to eat. I am also the designated birthday-cake-maker for my grandchildren and I also do a birthday meal and cake for my son-in-law. And my husband, of course. And my husband does it for me.

I wonder whether my liking of a proper birthday celebration stems from not having had them as a child... I certainly hadn't felt that I had missed out until I read this post!

I can only actually remember 1 birthday, so I don't know.

I had a cake every year growing up, all shop bought and I think usually from Tesco. I only liked the chocolate ones so that’s the only kind my mum bought after a couple of years of me refusing to eat my own birthday cake. The only home made birthday cake I ever had was made by my sister for my 18th. I’m in my late twenties now.

Mid 50s, we had birthday cakes from a local baker as primary school children for our birthday parties. If our parties weren’t on the day of our birthday there would be candles in a Lyons sponge cake on the day as well. My Mum couldn’t bake at all. I remember my 10th Birthday cake as it had a very cute flocked pink elephant on it that I kept for a very long time but I don’t remember any of the others.

I do bake but DS’s first 6 birthday cakes were all shop bought from an amazing cake maker near where I worked. I had a full on high pressure job and I couldn’t have found the time to make cakes like that. I became a SAHM when he turned 7 and he always had homemade cakes after that. The Australian Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake book was very inspiring.

I had birthday cake most years. I had a panda one year and a clock. Some years it was bought. Im around 50.

I dont think my mum or nan would have done as they had very harsh lives. I will have to ask my Dad though.

We always had birthday cakes - some bought, some made. My dm still has a cake for me when I visit around my birthday,

We never had cake otherwise, and I was quite astonished to discover some people had cake when it wasn’t anyone’s birthday. That still has a whiff of scandalous decadence for me 🤣

My dc had homemade themed cakes for every birthday until dd became a self conscious teenager and insist on a very ordinary looking cakes. Bah!

Me and my brother had a homemade chocolate cake every year. I’m 45.

Im in my late 60s and always had a home made birthday cake as a child, usually a fruit cake . I made a cake for my daughter every year when she was young and decorated it in whatever character she loved at the time. I can remember making a bananas in pyjamas cake, a huge spider with boots, M&M characters, and Ernie from Sesame Street. The most memorable cake was when she fell in love with Matthew Corbett, of sooty and sweep fame at the age of four, and I made her cake into a huge Matthew Corbett head. I will readily admit that Im not the best baker and this cake was truly hideous, but my daughter loved it and thought it looked just like him 🤣🤣🤣

Blimey @Selttan the cakes in that book are showstoppers! Kudos to your mum for delivering those. I think my attempts would end up as one of those 'expectation vs reality' memes.

We always had a homemade birthday cake, but my mum is German so (Kaffee und) Kuchen is in her DNA. I am not as gifted a baker but I always deliver a wonky homemade or paid for by a local cake maker. It's absolutely the main point of the birthday for us.

I love a coffee and walnut, (not such a popular choice for a 5 year old's party though!)

Australian women’s weekly here too. The excitement of choosing which one each year and I’ve done the same for my kids.

My mum used to save up and get us all a Colin the caterpillar. Before he came out the older two got chocolate cake, but the other 4 of us are all PC (post Colin). She still sends my husband money and says to make sure I get my Colin even though I am an adult with 3 kids. I do love a Colin through!

She says the first time she saw a Colin the caterpillar in the shop she had popped into M&S for a wee “and was enamoured” 😭 she’s never said anything like that about my dad.

We don’t do themed / character cakes for the kids - DH is French and doesn’t hold with such fripperies. I kind of agree - fondant is nasty!

But they choose what they would like (chocolate, strawberry, red velvet etc) and they get a proper proper cake that looks beautiful (just not like Peppa or a unicorn etc)….

When I was really young I had birthday cakes shop brought, but then I got to six and my parents thought it would be a great idea to book hoildays every. Single. Year on my birthday so I never got another cake again. I was very resentful for it, as I never got to have parties with my friends and my parents never understood why I was annoyed about it while my sibling got to have cake & parties on their birthday and I’d be stuck in a bloody tent with it pissing down somewhere in the middle of France. 🤷‍♀️ I actually had to put my foot down when I got ro eighteen, I wanted to go to the pub not be stuck somewhere where I didn’t know anyone but of course I was the ungrateful one lol.

Homemade every year. It was round because mum didnt think about getting a different shape tin. And it was spilt down the middle, not two sandwiched together. Thick icing writing because mum only had three piping nozzles. Maybe smarties on, but generally those toothbreaking silver cachous(sp). And always made from a packet cake mix.

I’m one of 6 and we each had a birthday cake homemade by mum every birthday. We asked for what we wanted and she performed miracles. I remember ponies, shaggy dogs, motorbikes, cartoon characters, all of them sculpted with the cake itself and decorated immaculately. She was so clever with it. I make my kids’ birthday cakes the same way, altho I’m not quite as talented.

My mum made me a birthday cake every year until she passed. Marble madeira cakes as a child and my favourite fruit cakes as an adult. I also always had a party at home as a child for my friends. I did the same for my sons.

Didn’t have a birthday cake until I got with OH (at 23) . He still buys me a cake every year(early 40’s).

I had a birthday cake every year. It was shop-bought due to necessity, because my mother's terrible cooking is legendary, so she never attempted to bake anything!

I also had to endure birthday parties, which I hated, until I was around 12. I was a very shy child, and almost as far from being popular as possible, so enforced birthday parties were a gruelling experience. I wonder if the natural result of that is my adulthood tradition of not celebrating my birthday 😂