craftyandcake: Flashback Friday

I was at my friends house the other day and she showed me some photo albums from when she was little and pointed out that there was always a photo of the birthday cake. In the photo albums at my mum's house there is always a birthday cake photo too. My Mum always made our birthday cakes and one of my earliest memories is of looking through the books like this choosing my birthday cakes. I still love looking through these books and now have some of my own that Ruby loves to look at. Here she is planning her 7th Birthday cake. With three years to go she is starting her planning early!

Writing this post made me wonder where the tradition of birthday cake comes from. A quick look at Wikipedia and I discovered that birthday cakes have been part of a western birthday tradition for nearly 250 years. That is a lot of cake! In our house the cake is something that is taken for granted and an important ritual of a birthday celebration. A couple of times I have said not to bother with a cake for me, with my birthday being in early January and I feel a bit caked out after Christmas and Ruby's birthday, but my kids have been in uproar and insist on a cake. It seems it is as important as cards and gifts.

For me the best bit of a kids party is the cake. Not all Mums bake the cakes themselves and that's great because I love the Chocolate caterpillar supermarket cake and the cake tray bakes. I make and decorate cakes for my kids because I love doing it but I do sometimes feel like it's a chore, especially when I am trying to ice a cake at 1am on New Years Eve/Day through blurry eyes.

Do you buy or bake? What did your Mum do for your birthday cakes? Are there photo's of cakes in your childhood/children's photo albums?

These are some of my favourites...