Sorry I’ve been a little MIA lately…unfortunately sometimes life gets in the way of writing on the blog or posting on Facebook! I WILL do a post about my trip to New York last week…soon hopefully! In the meantime, I shared this post over at the SNAP! Conference blog last week, so I thought I’d share it with you today!
I think we’d all agree that a birthday cake is pretty much an essential part of any birthday celebration, right? Well, I guess that’s not entirely true, because cupcakes have kind-of become essential too (which I totally agree with!), but today I’m going to focus on cakes specifically.
I personally LOVE a fabulous custom fondant cake for any birthday party. The cake I ordered for my son’s Mario Kart birthday party last year is probably one of my favorite cakes we’ve had at our house.
A custom fondant cake can sometimes get a little expensive, and isn’t always needed for a small family get-together. But don’t worry…I have some grocery store alternatives for a birthday cake that’ll make your next celebration absolutely fabulous!
Rainbow parties are a very popular theme right now and I’m still loving the chevron trend, so I created this bright and cheery birthday cake that could easily be used for any child or adult’s birthday. It’s simple, but still creates a nice wow factor. Change it up to only include the birthday person’s favorite colors, instead of using all the colors of the rainbow.
I started with a plain white cake I ordered from my local grocery store and a large bag of Skittles.
Create the rainbow zig-zag pattern around the base of the cake until you’ve covered the entire cake.
To make the happy birthday bunting, simply tape pieces of ribbon onto baker’s twine and add scrapbook sticker letters to the ribbon. Then tie the twine to 2 bamboo skewers and insert into the cake – easy as that!
One of my kids isn’t a huge fan of birthday cake, but LOVES donuts, so I created a donut cake by stacking donuts on a cake plate and added a little banner with his name on it – he loved it!!
This Kit-Kat cake from Recipe Girl is a really fun and chocolately idea!
photo via Recipe Girl
How about a no-bake rice krispie cake from Martha Stewart?
photo via Martha Stewart
A simple white square cake decorated with various sizes of M&M’s from Parents.com.
image via Parents.com
Add colored gumballs to a plain white cake, similar to this wedding cake created by Truli Confectionary Arts.
- photo via Phillymag.com
With Sweetapolita’s cake as inspiration…a colorfully frosted, round cake decorated with sprinkles would make anyone smile on their birthday!
image via Sweetapolita
A homemade chocolate cake decorated with candy rocks (from Glorious Treats) would be a hit, especially with the boys!
image via Glorious Treats
And finally, for those of you wanting to cut down on the sugar for your birthday celebration, make a fruit cake from Family Fun!
image via Family Fun
What’s your favorite cake for birthday parties? Do you usually buy one from the store, or make something special for the birthday boy or girl? Maybe you prefer cupcakes? I’d love to hear!
Holly, these ideas are fabulous! I love your skittles cake and your alternative cake of donuts. I know someone that would love that! Thanks for all your great ideas!
Debbie
Thanks so much Debbie for visiting!! I’m glad you liked the ideas!
Thanks for providing this information on your site.
Hello! I love your ideas and my friend’s 15th birthday is coming up and she would just ADORE the cake with the skittles on it and the little bunting. Could you tell me what type of cake it is please? And what type of icing is on it? Many thanks!
Hi Hazel, thanks for visiting! It is just a 2 layer white cake with white buttercream frosting. I just ordered it from Walmart – very inexpensive and simple.