April is a month full of birthdays in our family. Every time one of us has a birthday, we lift the beloved birthday plate from the closet shelf and place it on the kitchen counter where it sits in plain and celebratory view until the cake is made and served. We’ve been doing this for as long as I can remember, and I can’t imagine not seeing that plate at birthday time.
The plate stays the same, but the cake changes depending upon whose birthday we’re honoring. We often stick to the solid standbys of white cake or yellow cake, both admittedly from a box, but the angel food cake is always made from scratch. This April things are being shaken up a bit with a request for red velvet instead of the classic chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.
When my siblings and I were growing up, a big part of the birthday fun was choosing the cake. Our mom made the best cakes. The favorites were orange cake topped with orange rinds ground from a cast-iron grinder, tomato soup cake (yes, made with a can of Campbell’s tomato soup), lemon cake with lemon juice poured over the top, crazy cake made with vinegar, rhubarb cake made with rhubarb from the back yard, angel food cake, and apple swirl cake made in a Bundt pan.
A fun addition to our cakes was the single nut placed in the batter. The recipient of the piece of cake in which the nut was hiding was said to have good luck until that person’s own birthday.
What is your birthday tradition? What about it keeps you repeating it?
[Photography by Moon Lake Multimedia. All rights reserved.]
Joan Neumiller
What a beautiful plate! Reminds me of a ceramic cookie tray and coffee mug that I painted with Christmas motifs the year my son was born. Every year since we’ve put out the traditional cookies and milk for Santa on them, and that hasn’t stopped just because my kids are grown up now. They can’t imagine Christmas without it. We don’t really have a birthday tradition, but I love the cake plate idea! Maybe it’s time for another ceramic painting night….