A spread of frosted cakes, awesomely decorated cupcakes and your favorite treats will end any birthday celebration on a sweet note.
Birthday Cake with Hot-Pink Butter Icing
The secret ingredient for Ina Garten's moist cake layers? The addition of sour cream. Bake a 9-inch, a 6-inch and a 3-inch layer and frost each separately with hot-pink icing. Chill each frosted layer before stacking, then pipe or spoon the remaining frosting around the base of each cake and around the top edge of the top layer before finishing with candy decorations.
Ina's vanilla and lemon-zest cake will be your hardest-working birthday dessert. It comes together with just 15 minutes' prep time and is covered in an easy chocolate frosting. Kids can decorate the cake with their favorite chocolate candies.
Jazz up a package of chocolate cake mix with mini semisweet chips. Divide icing into batches and use a different food coloring for each batch so the result is a festive display of cupcakes.
Get your kids involved in Ree Drummond's strawberry-filled cake — her girls helped with each of the steps. Put parchment on your cake plate before icing so that you can make a mess when you're applying and just slide the parchment out when you're done.
Trisha Yearwood's pound cake is the perfect recipe if you don't consider yourself a baker — it's that easy. Serve the dense cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Giada De Laurentiis makes this shortcut cake for her husband's birthday. Cut down on prep time by starting with boxed white cake mix and incorporating orange zest and orange juice. Incorporate raspberry jam into the frosting itself and between cake layers.
Tyler Florence fills a squeeze bottle with grape jelly and squeezes it into the the tops of vanilla cupcakes. Ice the tops of the cupcakes with decadent peanut butter frosting and finish with your favorite candy decorations.
Carrot Cake with Marshmallow Fluff Cream Cheese Frosting
Bobby Flay's carrot cake is filled with fabulous spices like freshly grated ginger, crystallized ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bobby turns traditional cream cheese frosting on its head with the addition of Fluff.
Giada folds smooth chocolate into peaks of egg whites to make the batter for these cupcakes. The result is a hand-held treat that's crispy on the outside and moist on the inside.
Cracked Chocolate Earth with Whipped Cream (Flourless Chocolate Cake)
You need only six ingredients for Tyler's intense chocolate cake. With only 20 minutes' prep time and dozens of 5-star reviews, this cake is sure to be a crowd-pleaser.
Kids will love designing their own birthday cake with Food Network Magazine. Choose from solid, striped, ombre or rainbow for the inside, then cover the outside with mini marshmallows, chocolate rocks, ombre coconut or nonpareils.
This is a great dark-cocoa cake that keeps for days, making it a perfect make-ahead option for a party. To make it more festive, frost with creamy white icing.
