A family of eight has a lot to celebrate. At times it feels like we just go from one party to the next. Seven of our birthdays occur within a 5 month span, and there are Holidays sprinkled in between too! It typically starts with Earthbaby’s birthday, right before Thanksgiving, so it goes something like this: Earthbaby-Thanksgiving-SaintNicholas-Christmas-Smunchie-NewYears-Epiphany-Squigglebug *breathe* Valentine’sDay-Lollie-Storyteller-Jessica-Sugarbaby. That’s a lot of partying. So much, that we decided to ditch Saint Nicholas Day last year.
Yes, we have a lot to celebrate in our little home, which means a lot of cakes. And in our family, the birthday girl (or boy) gets to pick out their own cake. We’ve found out just how crazy creative our family can be when it comes to cakes! As I am considered to be the baker in the family, when a cake request is made, all eyes typically converge on me, and I’ve had to learn to let go of my perfectionist fears and just dive in. But more often than not, Jessica – who isn’t typically afraid of just diving in – and I end up collaborating to make these chefs d’oeuvre (French for masterpiece) together. That’s how we’ve ended up making the following sampling of cakes this past year:
Yellow Cake: yellow inside and out, colored with turmeric.
Ben & Jerry’s ice cream cake: ok, we didn’t actually make that one ourselves…
Red Cake: this ended up being a red velvet cake colored red with beet juice – a first for us
White Cake with Candied Violets: this was last year, but memorable, so I included it here. We couldn’t find candied violets, so we bought an assortment of edible flowers and candied them ourselves. The cake was beautiful, but the flowers looked better than they tasted.
Oreo Cake: layers of chocolate cake and cream cheese frosting, with Newman’s Own sandwich cookies crumbled on top (this was made into cupcakes later also). Added bonus: the frosting had texture: spikes, reminiscent of my hair, when it’s not in desperate need of a chop.
Marbled Cake: Marbled white and chocolate cake with marbled cream cheese and chocolate frostings. I’m so glad Jessica did the marbling for the frosting, as my marbling for the cake parts was more chunky than marbly.
Now we didn’t go to culinary school, and we are not, to my knowledge, related to Martha Stewart or Betty Crocker. When Squigglebug declared that she wanted yellow cake with yellow frosting, Jessica and I turned to Google to find out what our options were, as we no longer use food coloring. This led us to try turmeric as a natural food coloring option. And Squigglebug’s desire to have a red cake this year challenged us to try beets for the color and to explore the possible origin of the ever-so-popular red velvet cake – steeped in mystery. Each new whimsical idea leads to a kitchen experiment and a new experience for our family. And more often than not, the experience is not only memorable, but enjoyable as well.
For the latest (next-to-last) challenge in our cakestravaganza this season, I encouraged Jessica to pick out a cake. Naturally, she turned to Pinterest, land of all things bright, beautiful, and drool-worthy. She found this:
photo credit: http://www.ericasweettooth.com/2010/05/chocolate-hazelnut-mousse-layer-cake.html
My jaw dropped and I had to push back feelings of inadequacy. She noticed and started to say that it wasn’t important, but that was just the motivation I needed to give this impressive cake a try. In a large family, where it’s necessary to do things and go places together, it can be a challenge to carve out time to focus on just one person, so birthdays have become rather sacred. They are a celebration of each unique member of our family; the one day a year where it is “all about you.” Picking out a cake is one of the ways that we celebrate the value of each person in the family and each cake is a reflection of their unique taste and creativity. So there was no question: the beautiful cake above HAD to be attempted. And if it failed to live up to the ideal pictured online (and above), it would still be a sweet and sticky mess that we all enjoyed together in honor of the birthday girl.
For this particular recipe I had to find a homemade alternative for Nutella, as we no longer buy that taste of heaven because we only use fairly traded chocolate now. This is what I used, and I was quite happy with the results. So happy, in fact, that instead of making chocolate curls, we used the leftover homemade chocolate hazelnut spread as a topping for the cake (Jessica’s brilliant idea). This was the first time that I turned two round cakes into 4. And I would call the hazelnut mousse filling/frosting more of a hazelnut/coffee whipped cream. Here is how it turned out:
Jessica was hoping for a cake that wasn’t overly sweet, and this really fit the bill. We’ve both been frustrated with how sweet frosting recipes turn out to be. So sweet that even our girls have a difficult time finishing even one slice. I mean, kids should clamor for more, shouldn’t they? It’s just not right for kids to not beg for more sweets. That was not the case with this cake.
Yes, in a family of our size, we have a lot to celebrate. So does every size family. And sometimes a fanciful cake is exactly what you need to bring everyone together around one person.
Even if it looks like this:
I intended to write this post last week, on the heels of Jessica’s birthday, but maybe it’s no coincidence that it’s finally ready today, on Sugarbaby’s first birthday. Happy birthday, Baby. I can’t wait until you come home with Mommy and we can celebrate you as a family. I wonder how your cake will turn out.
~ Jeremy
I love this post! I LOVE CAKE! I come from a family with 7 children so I can totally relate. We also got to choose our cake (as well as what we’d eat for dinner) on our birthday, although most of the time we weren’t as creative as your family is!! Love the last picture…I’m sure it was still delicious!
Thanks Sarah! That last cake was really good. Even when a cake flops, it’s still usually delicious to eat. And we also pick our own meals for our birthdays around here. We are completely over the top and the kids select a menu for all 3 meals of the day, but we do get some say, otherwise it could easily turn into sweets all day. We do insist on there being actual meals selected and not just different forms of sugar! I guess homeschooling does have its perks. This would have never worked with me as a kid, since I went to public school. ~ Jeremy
Jeremy-I love how u take such an active role in making individual family members feel important and special. In my experiences in life, that is almost always totally taken on by a mother. Reading your posts/blogs often bring tears to my eyes.
Thank you, Tanya. I am not content to just fit the societal mould presented as normal for men. And Jessica feels the same way about the expectations for women. We are both dedicated to this path of living this beautiful life more and more as ourselves, conforming to status quo only where it fits with who we are, what we believe, and what we stand for (or against). We are far from perfect, but we keep growing. : ) As it took both of us to produce these marvelous children, I believe they will continue to need both of us involved in their lives, believing in who they are and who they are becoming, and being there for them. One of questions that I ask myself fairly often in relation to my kids is: what is the primary thing that I am communicating to them, through my words and my actions? My hope is that it is love, and if this is truly my goal, it should color and guide all of my interactions with them. ~ Jeremy
Love you new blog Jeremy and Jessica! Love hearing about your family:). Happy Birthday Sugarbaby!
Thank you, Ashley! ~ Jeremy
Hehe, I like the goopy drip cake the most. It looks just messy enough to be guarenteed delicious.
It was such a mess! I tried to cram a process that was supposed to take 12 hours or into 2-3 hours. The main issue was that refrigeration was supposed to help it firm up and hold up. I guess that was really important… : ) It was Smunchie’s “Pink Cake” and it was delicious! ~ Jeremy
Who makes your cake ? I am hoping all 7 fabulous ladies in your house. Lovely family. We are a family of 8 too but made up of 4 boys and two girls plus mum and dad x always so much to be thankful for x
Hi Aileen, great question! We take turns, sometimes it’s a group effort, others just one of us takes it on. We all love it though, even though he’s better at baking, it’s an honor to make his cake. ~ Jessica
I’ve been following Jessica’s “leaky boob” on facebook for some time and I have to say that I really admire your family and just how close knit you all seem to be. I have 4 children of my own (13, 10, 6, and the baby is just days away from 2) and I can relate to the chaos and the love and the busy-ness that having a big family brings. There is never a dull moment in our home. Thank you for opening up the door to your day to day lives and sharing it with the rest of the world. I especially enjoyed the pictures of your cakes. Funny thing is that I am the baker, the photographer, the everything while my husband works, I stay at home taking care of the house, the children. Everything. I enjoy baking, especially in recent months, I have been surprising my family with little treats here and there and I also am moving away from heavily processed, genetically modified-bad-for-you foods. I’d personally love to hear more about how you color your foods naturally. Maybe you could share more about this. Time permitting, of course with your busy family life. God bless you and your family.
I really like the Oreo Cake. Can I ask you for sharing recipe for this cake with us, please?