Classic Birthday Or Celebration Cake!

Everyone needs a recipe for a classic birthday cake up their sleeve! This one is celebratory with a moist funfetti inside and with a classic American buttercream frosting and a white chocolate ganache drip! I called her Mimi.

What I love about this cake is that it is a blank canvas-not white blank as in plain, it's most certainly a celebration cake but you can customise it to the birthday girl or boy's taste by adding figurines on the top and the cake topper of your choice.

I made this cake for my friend Ivy who recently had a birthday. She was very stealth about it, I only saw it was her birthday when I went onto facebook.

I made her a cake because I love making my friends cakes. I try and make them to their taste and her husband Ryan told me that she loves wedding cakes. In America they sell wedding cake offcuts and she used to buy these. "There was this little bakery where we used to live and they would sell pieces of wedding cake that were offcuts for a dollar. I used to go there all the time," Ivy said. They're a mix of cake flavours but they have American buttercream frosting in common which I know she absolutely loves. The dogs are a natural because she and I both love dogs (the cake's name Mimi is after her late dachshund Mimi).

I was seeing her the following night and I told her that I had a cake for her. Except I accidentally typed instead of funfetti it corrected to tell Ivy that I made her a "fingertip cake".

"Arrrgh! I did not make you a cake made out of fingertips," I quickly corrected. "PROMISE!". I mean I might have made a fingertip cake but it would be around Halloween...

So tell me Dear Reader, have you had any funny autocorrect fails? What cake flavour would you choose for your birthday cake and what figurines would best represent you?

A Classic Birthday Cake

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 120 minutes

Cooking time: 1 hour

• 3 cups cake flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 280g/10ozs caster or superfine sugar
• 350g/12.4ozs. butter, softened
• 5 eggs, room temperature
• 1.5 cups buttermilk
• 3/4 cup sprinkles

For Raspberry & Vanilla Buttercream

• 200g/7ozs. butter, softened
• 6 cups icing sugar, sifted
• 2 tablespoons milk
• A few drops pink colouring
• 1 teaspoon raspberry flavouring
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup sprinkles

For White Chocolate Ganache Drip

• 100g/3.5ozs. white chocolate
• 40ml/1.4flozs. cream
• 1/4 cup sprinkles (I mixed sprinkles)

Step 1 - Preheat oven to 130C/266F. Line 3 x 20cm/8inch tins with parchment on the base and sides. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a beater attachment mix the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda and sugar together. Whisk the eggs with the buttermilk in a jug.

Step 2 - Beat in the butter and it will look like buttercream. Then add the egg milk mixture until it looks like a cake batter. Divide into the three tins. Stir in the sprinkles dividing these among the three tins. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until the centre springs back when touched gently. Cool completely.

Step 3 - Make the buttercream. Beat the butter for a minute or until smooth. Add the icing sugar and beat on low speed at first and then increase and add the milk, pink colouring and flavourings. Beat for 4 minutes or until fluffy. Divide the buttercream into a 2/3 portion and a 1/3 portion. Add the sprinkles into the 1/3 portion - this is the buttercream for in between the layers of cake while you'll use a plain pink for the outside.

Step 4 - Take one cake layer and place on turntable, ideally an angled one. Spread some of the sprinkle buttercream thickly and then repeat with the other two layers (although don't cover the top layer with sprinkle buttercream). Then using the regular pink buttercream make a thin crumb coat of buttercream. Place the cake in the fridge to firm up.

Step 5 - Then add a thicker layer of pink buttercream to cover the cake completely. Smooth with a buttercream smoother. Then using a tablespoon add sprinkles to the base of the cake. I put the cake turntable on a large baking dish to catch the sprinkles. Place the cake in the fridge uncovered.

Step 6 - Make the ganache for the drips by melting the white chocolate and cream. Next is a test of patience. Wait until the ganache becomes thicker at room temperature-this can take up to 45 minutes or so (it depends on the ambient temperature), just keep checking.

Step 7 - Apply the ganache drips - I do the drips before I ganache the top of the cake. Use a teaspoon and drip a 1/4 teaspoon amount down the side of the cake and repeat around the cake. Then using a tablespoon, spoon ganache on the top and use an angled palette knife to smooth out the ganache on the top.

Step 8 - Use a pastry brush (I find this best with a proper bristle brush, not a silicon one), dip the brush into the sprinkles and press against the ganache gently. Place cake in the fridge to set. You can then decorate the cake with figurines and signs.