I’ve made quite a few non-character, non-themed birthday cakes over the past few weeks.  Just simple, happy, feel good celebrations cakes.

These cakes aren’t fancy or flashy or dripping with a theme. They’re just classy, understated, and say to the recipient “you’re special, so we got you a special cake.”

They are decadent, delicious, and not ones you’d typically make for yourself…or get at a bakery or grocery store. They’re one-of-a-kind unique and made just for that special birthday person.

I love doing these cakes, because it kind of lets me create what I’d like brought to the table on my own birthday.

Here are a couple of my favorites…

This one is a version of the raspberry almond cake I posted a few weeks ago, only I added colored sequins on top for some color.  It’s an 8″ sour cream almond cake with raspberry filling and vanilla buttercream.

I made the plaques and stars from homemade marshmallow fondant; the plaques are painted gold with edible paint.  I added the chocolate hearts kind of as an afterthought as I was making them for this drip cake I was doing at the same time…

I love the look of these drip cakes, especially black on white.  So dramatic.  The cake was a 10″, 2-layer (one chocolate and one sour cream vanilla).  There was a raspberry mousse filling between the layers, so I used raspberries on top.  I used chocolate ganache for the drip and melted chocolate for the hearts.  This one was for a father and daughter who celebrated their birthdays together ;0)

For this one, the birthday girl wanted rustic icing and fall-colored buttercream flowers.

I used a special petal tip and variegated icing to pipe the mums on pieces of parchment paper, then popped them into the freezer to firm up before adding them to the cake.   Then I filled in with a star tip for the yellow flowers and leaves.

And then there is the humble-but-oh-so-yummy chocolate cake with whipped ganache icing and multi-colored sequins…mmmmmm.