Basic yellow cake with lemon filling and vanilla butter cream frosting..3 or 4 layers....
And it's been years and years since I have had one...

I love a nice moist white cake with milk chocolate frosting. NO frills.

No birthday cake for me.
Good ol' Oatmeal cookies is my favorite!
But not just any oatmeal cookies.
They have to be made with Old Fashioned oat meal, walnuts and raisins.
Cinnamon, & no vanilla.
Used to irritate my mother to no end.
She thought birthdays had to have cake.

Rusty

I used to ask for blackberry cobbler every year for my birthday. :)

If I had a cake, though, I think it would be either a carrot cake or this orange cake I once made from an issue of Fine Cooking back in 2002 or 2003. I wish I still had the recipe. It was really good.

The office usually bakes lemon bars, I love 'em, but my favorite cake is the plain, dense, old fashioned Hot Milk Cake posted here by Pixistix with the brown sugar frosting from CindyNY's daughter.

The frosting is caramely and a bit grainy, the cake is dense and kind of plain and it's just perfect, the whole combo.

Annie

I make myself a Zuppa Inglese, which is like a trifle cake. Four sherry-soaked sponge cake thin layers, with sliced strawberries and thick custard between the layers, then all frosted with whipped cream. Mmmm.

German Chocolate Cake!!! Hubby makes me one from scratch every year (including milling the low-protein "cake" flour for the recipe - a 3:1 ratio of soft white wheat and spelt). The Coconut-Pecan Filling and Frosting is made with unsweetened coconut. He uses low-glycemic agave nectar, instead of sugar in the recipe. You would never know it was sugar-free...

-Grainlady

My favorite B-day cake is a lemon cake with lemon frosting and fresh coconut on the top and sides. Wayne makes one for me every year. Very moist and it has that little bit of eye shuttering tang to it. NancyLouise

I love a coconut cake!! With buttercream frosting topped with coconut!

Annie, your reference to the Hot Milk Cake reminds me of what my grandmother used to make. Every Saturday she made a yellow cake with Caramel icing. I was only 9 when she died but I remember the cake as being coarse textured and I loved it. No one in the family had her recipe. The best cake I have ever had was when I turned 70. I was working at Williams-Sonoma at the time and one of the girls I worked with made Ina Garten's Chocolate Ganache Cake for my birthday. It was just wonderful and I was so touched.

For the most part I prefer pound cake, no icing, or apple pie.

jude

I love me some Doberge cake. Here is a borrowed recipe from Google.

Doberge cake
By Judy Walker
February 25, 2009, 4:55AM
The 1987 privately published "Let's Bake with Beulah Ledner" cookbook by Maxine Wolchansky, Ledner's daughter, explains how the "Doberge Queen of New Orleans" adapted the famous Hungarian dobos torta to the local climate and gave it a French-sounding name, doberge. Ledner retired in 1981 at the age of 87 and died at age 93, leaving a legacy that lives on in her recipes (bought by Gambino's) for this popular cake that can be found and all over New Orleans.
.

Of course you would want all ingredients to be at room temperature before starting.

Doberge torte

1 ½ sticks butter

2 cups sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

4 eggs, separated, whites stiffly beaten

1 cup milk

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 ½ cups cake flour (measured after sifting)

Scant teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream butter, sugar and salt until smooth. Add egg yolks, one at a time, and blend until smooth. Add sifted dry ingredients alternately with milk. Beat until blended. Add vanilla and lemon juice.

With a spatula, fold in stiffly beaten egg whites.

Grease 9-inch cake pans. Pour ¾ cup batter into each pan, spreading evenly over bottom. Bake in preheated 375-degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes. Repeat process until batter is completely used, to make eight thin layers.

When cool, put layers together with chocolate custard filling and spread chocolate butter cream icing on top and sides. Chill. Then ice with Always Delicious Chocolate Icing.

CHOCOLATE CUSTARD

2 cups granulated sugar

½ teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons flour

4 tablespoons cornstarch

2 heaping kitchen spoons cocoa

4 tablespoons bitter chocolate

4 whole eggs

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon vanilla

4 cups (1 quart) milk

Stir all dry ingredients together in a saucepan, then add the remaining ingredients. Cook over medium heat until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from fire to cool.

CHOCOLATE BUTTER CREAM ICING

2 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

½ pound oleo (margarine), softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup cocoa

1 ounce square bitter chocolate, melted

Cream sugar and oleo, then add cocoa, then the melted chocolate and vanilla. If too thick, add a little hot water, very slowly, until the consistency is right.

ALWAYS DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE ICING

1 cup light brown sugar

1 cup white granulated sugar

4 squares melted semi-sweet chocolate

½ stick butter

¾ cup cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and let it come slowly to a boil, then boil about 10 minutes until it thickens. Beat until thick enough to spread.

I tried to find the Hot Milk Cake recipe to no avail. Would someone, Annie or whoever might have it, please post it? The icing, (brown sugar frosting) too, if you don't mind.

Thanks, jude.

I had tried the search engine on the forum but I did find numerous recipes for the cake by googling. The brown sugar frosting had a good many variations. Keeping my grandmother's cake in mind, I doubt she had access to powdered sugar. We lived in a very rural area and generally got our staples from a "rolling store". Anybody else ever have the stores that came to you? Oops, I'm dating myself.

jude

Jude, I have my "Grandma-in-law's" Hot Milk Sponge Cake recipe. I've never tried it, but everything she made was good. I guess the word 'sponge' in the name turned me off. Brought up visions of a dry, fibrous and taastelss cake. :>)
The cake recipe doesn't seem to be complete, but the topping sounds like it could be what you are looking for.
This is typed just as she wrote it, although I did try to correct the spelling.

4 eggs, beat until light.
Add 2 cups sugar, vanilla, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 cups flour.
Bake in a flat pan.
Add last 2 tbsp butter to 1 cup milk, bring to boiling point. Stir quick, not hard.
Topping: 10 tbsp brown sugar, 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp cream or canned milk. Cook lightly. When cake is almost brown spread coconut on top, topping coconut with the topping. put back under broiler and brown.

After reading it over, I can see why I never tried it.
Don't you just love how that generation wrote recipes?
She was born in 1899. . . .

Rusty

As a child, my favorite was Angel-food cake, but later I cam to prefer chiffon or sponge cake. I also like pound cake with whipped cream and strawberries, but strawberries are not in season at my birthday. These days I prefer chocolate hazelnut Bavarian cream pie, which is not a cake at all.

Lars

Carrot Cake, Sour Cream Pound Cake and Ultimate Chocolate Cake are all personal favorites.

Sol

Chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting.

David

I haven't had anybody make me a birthday cake in so many years that I can't recall!!

Beanthere dunthat, is this your orange cake recipe? Please let me know if it is...it sounds delicious.

Here is a link that might be useful: Orange Layer Cake from Fine Cooking

I had tried the search engine on the forum but I did find numerous recipes for the cake by googling. The brown sugar frosting had a good many variations. Keeping my grandmother's cake in mind, I doubt she had access to powdered sugar. We lived in a very rural area and generally got our staples from a "rolling store". Anybody else ever have the stores that came to you? Oops, I'm dating myself.

jude

Claire, I'm almsot certain it is! It looks right, and issue 50 would have come out in 2002, so the timing is right. Thanks! I love citrus anyway, but this cake was so good!

At one time I had every issue of Fine Cooking. When we moved last time, we had to pare down a lot. Out went nearly ten years of FC and Savieur and 20+ years of Bon Appetit.

My favorites are homemade coconut cake (made with fresh coconut and coconut milk -- a rare treat these days) and cheesecake, either chocolate or plain with chocolate sauce.

I'm with Chase...no one makes me cakes...and the last one that was purchased for me was a black one w/black frosting for my 40th(I'm way way past that now,LOL). But when I was a child my GM made a yellow(scratch)cake w/chocolate frosting that I loved.

I love, love, love Red Velvet cake, with cream cheese frosting....especially the recipe I found a few years ago in Southern Living. Just fabulous!

I would be delighted if someone made this for me for my birthday. As it is, I make it for Valentine's Day, spring luncheons, etc. And it's wonderfully festive to serve at this time of year too.

Flourless (or at least absurdly rich) chocolate cake with raspberry filling and chocolate icing. All other cakes are just poor substitutes :-D

"Crunchy Chocolate Cake"

Years ago my mother's friend gave her handwritten recipes that had been passed down her late Austrian husband's family. She tried the flourless chocolate cake and our granulated cane sugar must not be the right thing because it doesn't dissolve and results in a weirdly crunchy bite. I'm sure that's not what was intended but we loved it, and this rich, dense, crunchy cake has been a staple in our family birthday celebrations ever since.

Anyone have a explanation or solution to that crunch? I'm not sure we'd try it, but I'd be interested!

Make mine Zuppa Inglese (Italian rum cake) or a Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte. Also love a coconut layer cake made with yellow layers and a lemon filling.

Jude, the Hot Milk Cake was what I used for my wedding cake, I love the stuff. Here's the recipe I used, both for cake and frosting. The frosting does not contain powdered sugar.

Hot Milk Cake - Pixistix

Old fashioned, simple, melts in your mouth!

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 1/4 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

Beat eggs and sugar well. Combine flour with bk. powder and add to egg mixture along with vanilla. Heat milk and butter together until butter melts; gradually add to batter, beating until well blended.

Pour batter into a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 30 to 35 minutes.

Topping fom the daughter of Cindy NY

Brown Sugar Topping

1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 T unsalted butter
3/4 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Combine the brown sugar, whipping cream & butter in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, whisking constantly until smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in the vanilla.
Let stand 10 minutes. Whisk until of spreading consistency. Stir in the pecans. Spread over the brownies or cake. Let stand 1 hour or until set. Serve cold or at room temperature. Makes enough for an 8x8 pan.

Just a note, the topping seems pretty runny when you put it on the cake, but it sets right up when cool, so don't worry.

Annie

Thanks everyone for the recipes.

foodonastump - Please show us the recipe and see if we can figure it out. Do you think it used 'superfine' sugar?

"Superfine sugar is finely pulverized granulated sugar that dissolves much more quickly than regular granulated sugar. Bartenders use it for its dissolving properties, and it is often called for in light or uncooked desserts. It is called castor (or caster) sugar in Britain. You can make your own superfine sugar by running granulated sugar in a food processor or blender until powdery. After you turn it off, let the powder settle for a minute before you open the food processor. Otherwise youÂll be snorting sugar dust."

Clare

My favorite cake is Hummingbird cake. My daughter usually makes it for me.

Sue

I haven't had a birthday cake made for me since I was a teenager and that is quite a long time ago. If I wanted one today I would want just a simple chocolate cake with buttercream icing or a nice slice of cheesecake.

I'm not a big sweet eater.