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We are firm believers that it’s not a birthday without cake. Our kid-friendly birthday cake recipes range from tall, filled, and frosted layer cakes to easy sheet cakes and cupcakes, so there are options for all types of bakers. We’ve also got ice cream cakes that use store-bought ingredients for the non-baker—and the ice cream lover. Whether the birthday kid loves chocolate or leans vanilla, lives for carrot cake, or adores multi-colored confections, we’ve got you covered. Peruse these top-notch recipes for inspiration, and then get baking.
Confetti Cake With Vanilla Frosting
Enjoy our remake of classic boxed funfetti mix with this cheery recipe replete with homemade sprinkles. After all, it's a birthday party, so why not go all out?
Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcakes
These tender, sweet, and fluffy cupcakes are crowd-pleasers. You can tint the vanilla frosting any color to match the party decor or the birthday kid's favorite shade.
Rainbow Cake
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This birthday cake is a project, but what a spectacular one. Each of the six layers is tinted a different color, and Swiss meringue buttercream is used to fill and frost the cake.
Vanilla Sponge Cake With Strawberry-Meringue Buttercream
Another cake project, this lofty three-layer number has strawberries in its filling, pureed and mixed into the frosting, and decorating the top.
Vanilla Sheet Cake With Chocolate-Ganache Buttercream
This simple recipe starts with a basic yellow cake, topped with the fudgiest buttercream made from semisweet chocolate, heavy cream, corn syrup, and unsalted butter.
Pull-Apart Vanilla-Wafer Cupcake Cake With Berries
Can't decide between baking a cake and cupcakes for a birthday party? How about this creative recipe? Arrange cupcakes in a neat rectangle and spread an even layer of buttercream to give the appearance of a sheet cake. Skip the fresh berries for birthday candles and sprinkles if you prefer.
Cookies-and-Cream Sheet Cake
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Who needs frosting when you’ve got cookies in your cake? This sheet cake is easy to make and has a big impact. Don’t skip the birthday candles!
Banana-Split Ice Cream Cake
Everyone at the party will adore this innovative dessert that marries a traditional banana split sundae with a vanilla sheet cake.
Coconut Chiffon Cake With Chocolate Frosting
Celebrate a birthday with this light and airy cake that pairs three coconut-based ingredients—coconut oil, unsweetened coconut flakes, and coconut milk—for a sweet bite. Bonus: It's gluten-free!
Banana Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
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Any cake with cream cheese frosting is a winner in our books. This favorite sandwiches the frosting between layers of moist banana cake. It's a perfect pairing.
Striped Ice Cream Cake
For a colorful birthday cake, it's hard to beat this ice cream creation. It's the perfect project for a non-baker as it uses store-bought ice creams, sorbet, and jam, and you can easily swap boxed angel food cake for homemade. We also love this cake because you can make and freeze it up to a week in advance.
Moist Devil's Food Cake
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For those times when classic is best, there's this luscious, deeply chocolaty layer cake. It's finished with swoops of milk chocolate frosting.
Sprinkle Cake
Nothing says "birthday party" quite like a cake covered in colorful sprinkles. If that's not festive enough for you, we mixed sprinkles into the cake batter, too.
Triple-Chocolate Ice Cream Cake
This cake has a big impact and is great for a summer birthday or a chocolate lover. Buttermilk helps to keep the cake super moist while a white chocolate ganache offsets the richness of chocolate cake and chocolate ice cream.
Strawberry-Swirl Bundt Cake
A combination of ground freeze-dried strawberries and fresh strawberries—plus, pink gel-paste food coloring—add fruity flavor and a pink hue to the strawberry swirl in this eye-catching Bundt cake recipe.
Chocolate Sheet Cake With Vanilla Buttercream
What's black and white and sweet all over? This moist sheet cake recipe, which is perfect for serving a crowd at a birthday party.
Light and Fluffy Yellow Cake
If you've never baked a birthday cake from scratch, start with this basic recipe—a simple but spectacular yellow cake with a fine crumb thanks to cake flour, whipped egg whites, and buttermilk.
Vegan Chocolate Cake
Here's a birthday cake that will be safe for vegans or anyone with a dairy allergy. A thick, fluffy chocolate icing is spread between two layers of chocolate cake. But we don't stop there—top it off with a decadent chocolate ganache that's vegan, too!
Ombre Strawberry Cake
This pretty-in-pink birthday cake is just the thing for a celebration. Each layer is filled with strawberry jam, and then the whole thing is topped with a light pink Swiss meringue buttercream piped into delicate ruffles.
Neapolitan Ice Cream Cake
The best part of this birthday cake recipe is that you can completely customize it based on your favorite ice cream flavors. We layered pistachio gelato, vanilla ice cream, and strawberry ice cream, but feel free to choose whatever you or your kids like.
Carrot Cake With White-Chocolate Frosting
Who doesn't love carrot cake? This four-layer version is finished with a rich white chocolate-cream cheese frosting. We piped it in ruffles, but spreading the frosting would work just as deliciously.
Chocolate Angel Food Cake With Double-Chocolate Frosting
Want to know the secret to a light and fluffy cake? Cake flour, which has a lower protein count than all-purpose flour, is what gives this treat such a fine crumb. The rich chocolate flavor is accentuated with instant espresso powder.
German Chocolate Bundt Cake
A cake with a secret: under the rich chocolate glaze and moist chocolate cake in this German chocolate cake, lies a filling of pecans and shredded coconut.
Apple Layer Cake With Cream-Cheese Frosting
For a birthday that falls during autumn, we can't think of a more appropriate—and delicious—cake than this one. It's the perfect way to use up the bounty of freshly picked apples from the orchard.
Ombre Sheet Cake
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Raymond Hom
Streaks of pink, yellow, and orange food coloring create a vivid ombré hue atop this sheet cake. Feel free to use other colors (think blue and purple or green and yellow) based on what the birthday girl or boy loves best.
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