I had dreamt of this cake for days, weeks, months, YEARS... and it turned out exactly as I hoped! 
From the outside, it looks like a cute, simple, boring cake with plain white frosting. I surprised my birthday picnic guests when I cut into it and rainbow-swirls of cake came out! 
I used my favourite vanilla cake recipe, and followed these instructions to make the rainbow colors. In concentric circles, I poured the red batter first, then orange, yellow, green, blue and lastly purple. I was a bit nervous when the cake came out of the oven and all you could see was red, but the batter seems to have churned itself into its own colorful pattern. 

Big thanks to Tracy for helping me bake this cake!! My boyfriend Tomas made a rum cake for my birthday picnic too, which was PHENOMENAL!! Rum cake is my favourite :) 
 
Joel is my birthday buddy. We have the same birthday, 4 years apart. When Joel requested a banana cake, I was skeptical. What's so appealing about a banana cake? Wouldn't it be similar to a banana bread? That's not worthy of a birthday celebration! Well, I certainly had to eat my words. Banana cake is AWESOME! It's sweet and flavorful, and this cake was incredibly soft and moist! It's the kind of cake that's so good it doesn't even need frosting! But, I like frosting :). I put chocolate frosting between the layers, and mailed it to him with banana frosting to put on top. 

I used a recipe from Bon Appetit, (substituting greek yogurt for sour cream), which produced a ton of batter, especially because I used 6" cake pans. This made three thick layers of cake, as well as 6 banana cupcakes. I call this cake the Leaning Tower of Banana! Joel was thrilled with this cake, but he kept commenting on the awkward shape. I'll have to remember to make 1/2 a recipe if using those small 6" pans. 
 
Kate is a friend of a friend’s, and though we’ve only met a few times, she’s the kind of person that exudes energy and fun. She chose this blackberry mascarpone cake.

This is a vanilla cake with homemade berry coulis and mascarpone whipped cream in between each layer, covered in vanilla frosting. The vanilla cake recipe from the tiramisu cake has become my favourite and my standard. I ended up using the recipe for mascarpone whipped cream that came with the tiramisu cake also (minus the coffee of course), because the recipe for this cake called for gelatin, and I’m not a fan of that. I like to use whole, "normal" ingredients as much as possible, and gelatin just doesn’t interest me. (I also shy away from pudding mixes, cake mixes, sour cream, and cool whip.)
I tried my hand at some fun frosting techniques for the first time. I used food coloring to make light pink, dark pink and purple frosting, and I followed a tutorial video in an attempt to make an obmre look. It was kind of successful, but I wished I had stuck with a monochromatic color scheme of light pink, dark pink and white. For some reason I’m just not a fan of how the purple looked. Anyway, it was fun! I’ll certainly try ombre frosting again soon! 
 
This cake was made in the middle of a “cake blitz,” in which I baked five cakes in nine days. This cake has several unusual ingredients, so I would have preferred to make this cake the night before the baby shower in case I ran into problems. But in the craziness of the cake blitz I had no choice but to make it the morning of the baby shower. Luckily, my worries were unfounded. This cake turned out great!

This Food & Wine magazine recipe is not for the casual baker. This is the first cake that I used “tools” to make: a food processor to turn roasted almonds into almond meal; and an electric beater to whip the eggs. Besides the almond meal, this cake also had instant polenta and crème fraîche in the batter. It turns out that crème fraîche is not that hard to make: a cup of heavy cream and 2 tablespoons of buttermilk sitting in a warm location for 36 hours = homemade, fresh crème fraîche.  No big deal! There is a small amount of fresh rosemary in the batter, but unfortunately it was a little too mild. The texture of the cake was moist, soft and crumbly. The almond offered depth of flavor, that was rich and only slightly sweet. The light lemon glaze was a perfect complement to the cake. This is the kind of cake that you have with coffee on a lazy afternoon on your porch.

 
This cake is for my best friend from high school. It went in the mail!! 

I was very lucky that the recipient of my first mailed cake lives around the corner from my dad. I was able to mail it to him so that he can check and make sure it arrived safely, assemble it and bring it to her... all with this being a SURPRISE for my dear friend Shemaiah! 

How do you mail a cake?

(according to massive amounts of Google searches...) you freeze it! Cakes and frosting (supposedly) keep very well if frozen. To keep the cake moist, I wrapped it in parchment paper, then plastic wrap, and then shoved it in a freezer zip lock bag. It barely looked like a cake when it was wrapped and ready. Fast shipping is pretty pricey, and as I'm planning to send 10 cakes in the mail this year, it is important to find a way to keep cakes frozen for 4 days of standard slow old-school mail.

I got kinda lucky... I received a frozen item in the mail a few days before I had to send this cake out. I was able to re-use the styrofoam box and freezer bags! The gel packs were still partially frozen 4 days and 14 hours after the package had been shipped. This greatly increases my confidence in being able to send cakes in the mail. I've lived in three different US cities, and I have family across the globe, so mailing cakes allows me to involve as many loved ones in this project as possible. 
I baked it in a loaf pan so that it would be small enough to fit in the styrofoam shipping box. Baking something this shape takes FOR-FREAKIN-EVER! I started this cake late at night, and because it took over an hour to bake, it was past 2am by the time I got to bed. And I get up at 6. (But don't blame that on the cake. Baking is fun for me. I turn music on, dance around, and make a mess. I could have finished it much quicker. But I was having fun!) I was seriously freaking out, this cake took so long to bake. The edges browned while the center was still soft batter, so I wrapped the edges of the cake in foil and turned the oven temperature down to 305 degrees. I think it worked! Future mailed cakes will be baked in 6" round pans (and three layers!). I can't not freak out while a cake takes an hour to bake. Plus, a round cake is a classic homemade cake, and that's what this adventure is all about - classic homemade birthday cakes! 
This homemade chocolate buttercream frosting has redefined chocolate frosting for me!
Cake is the same recipe as the tiramisu cake. It's so moist and light! 
And a treat for my dad!! 

    100 Birthday Cakes

    As an homage to the homemade birthday cakes my family made for me as a child, I am endeavoring to make as many birthday cakes as possible for anyone that wants one this year.
    -Merissa Grant 

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