We generally don’t make a big fuss about birthdays around here, but we do have several traditions that are important to us. One of our birthday traditions is to start the day with Breakfast Birthday Cake.
Emery has been trained to safely cook, and usually volunteers to make it the day before it is needed. We usually make 2 cakes on each birthday, but since Greyden’s and Brett’s birthdays are just two days apart, Emery made three cakes at the same time.
After washing his hands, Emery removes the kid-friendly recipe I made for him and gets out a dry-erase marker.
Then he starts gathering all of his ingredients:
At times we make the cake from scratch, but normally we just use a boxed white or yellow cake mix (although he got “crazy” this time and made a chocolate cake too):
He washes the eggs (we have our own chickens, so we wash the eggs directly before using them which is safer):
And cracks them into the bowls:
And whisks them well:
He then adds the oil (we use extra virgin olive oil):
Next he adds the cake mix to the bowl:
Mixes it well:
He then adds the cake batter to 9×13 glass pans (each cake gets its own pan):
He sets the cakes in the oven to bake:
Then he makes our favorite part – the crumb topping! He starts with the sugar:
He adds cinnamon:
Then he adds Vanilla:
Adds butter:
After adding all the ingredients he mixes it well with his fingers:
Or a pastry mixer:
Until the crumbs are nicely mixed and no big clumps of butter remain:
Once the cake is finished baking, he adds the topping to the cakes:
And bakes the cakes again to cook the topping:
The he allows them to cool until they are ready to serve!
Recipe
Printable (kid friendly) version
Bake a cake of your choice in a 9×13 pan (we use a white or yellow boxed cake mix)
While the cake is baking, make the crumb topping
In a large bowl add,
- 3 Sticks of Butter
- 1 Cup of Sugar
- 3 cups of Flour
- 1 TBSP Cinnamon
- 1 ½ tsp Vanilla
Mix together with fingers or pastry cutter until crumbly
When cake is fully cooked, carefully remove from oven
Carefully add crumbs to the top of the cake
Spread crumbs evenly over entire surface of the cake (carefully, the cake is hot!)
Pat crumbs down gently
Bake for another 10 minutes
We use this recipe for breakfast birthday cake, but it makes a great cake for brunch as well.
Do you have any special foods you eat on birthday mornings?
Thanks for sharing, making this as Jesus’ Birthday Cake today! Yum!
We do that too! Hope you loved it. 🙂 PJ
It was perfect! My husband loved it so much he decided that is HIS new favorite birthday cake! Thanks for sharing!
That is a very nice tradition. We don’t have birthday breakfasts, other than eggs. However, my kids like to make and decorate the cake. My eldest 4 can make a cake (ages 10-17) by themselves or mostly by them self. We use a wood cook stove so the youngest needs help putting it in the oven as the whole stove is hot. The second eldest keeps the fire at the perfect range for baking usually for everyone excluding mom and dad, since she seems to be the only one that knows how to keep it exactly the heat it needs to be. They know when a cake is done and have practiced the butter knife test for years. We do not make most of them from scratch, but we have before.
People have often worried the children would get burned with a hot wood stove, but the truth is if you train them how to use it properly it keeps them safe. Even as toddlers they didn’t play with it or around it. They knew it made owies, as mom and dad demonstrated daily from cooking. Occasionally, they might still get hurt if they grab a pan the wrong way or aren’t careful shutting the oven door. Which would be the same for any other oven. We keep a little first aid kit less than 10 feet away in case of burns, with burn gel in it. We also keep several fire extinguishers and a smoke detector less than 10 feet away. I think children are capable of anything they decided to do and our job isn’t to keep them from doing for their own safety, but to show them how to do it safely.
That was very well said, and I completely agree with your feelings. Modern children are much more capable than we give them credit for if we would just provide them with some training. PJ
Thanks for the recipe. I baked this cake for my mom’s birthday today. I used 2 sticks of butter and added some coconut oil to replace the 3rd stick of butter. I will definitely bake more of them.
I’m glad you enjoyed it!! PJ