The Beach Cake – My Son’s Homemade Birthday Cake

Frugal Baking, Frugal Cooking, Frugal Party, Homemade Birthday Cake Add comments

Mar 042012

I usually take the easy route and buy a birthday cake from Publix for my kids’ birthday, but the price had gone up, and last time the one cake we got was just barely enough. Instead of spending $36+ on a birthday cake from Publix, I therefore decided to make a homemade birthday cake. My son loves the beach, he loves sharks, and he is basically all about the ocean, so I knew that I wanted to make a beach cake.

Find the base recipe for the beach cake here. I did make a few minor adjustments, but it turned out great. I used store-bought icing, as I find it easier to work with when decorating, and it also holds up better to the Florida heat than my homemade icing does.

The Beach Cake – Homemade Birthday Cake

5 cups of brown sugar
4 cups of white sugar
3 cups of butter
12 eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
8 cups flour
2 cups baking cocoa
3 tablespoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cups sour cream
4 cups boiling water

For Decorating:

2 x store-bought vanilla frosting
1 x store-bought chocolate frosting
Green and blue food colors
Candy (Small Swedish Fish, Haribo Gummi Bears, Shark Candy)
Umbrellas
Sprinkles

This is a 36 serving cake, so make sure that you either have a big bowl or use two bowls. I used a large roasting pan to serve the cake in.

Separate cake for the island

In a mixing bowl, cream brown sugar and butter.
Add eggs, one at a time, and beat on high until everything is light and fluffy.
Blend in vanilla.
Combine flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt, and add to the batter a little at a time.
Add sour cream, and mix on low.
Stir in the boiling water until blended.
Spray the pan with a cooking spray or grease with butter.
Pour into a large baking pan or foil roasting pan. Only fill 3/4 of the pan, so that it does not overflow.
Pour a little of the batter into a small baking dish or baking pan to be used for an island.
The remaining batter can be used for cupcakes or a small cake.
Bake in the oven at 350 degrees F until a toothpick comes out clean for 35 – 60 minutes depending on the kind of pan that you are using.
Make sure to cool the cake before beginning to frost it.
Either create a small island in the middle of the cake, or make it in a corner. You can use a bowl or a cup to press over the cake, which you made for the island to make a perfect circle.

Beach Cake Decorating:

Mix 1 tub of vanilla icing with blue food coloring for the ocean.
Mix 1/4 tub of vanilla icing with enough chocolate icing to make it light brown (color of the beach sand for the island)
Mix 1/4 tub of vanilla icing with green food coloring for grass on the island.
Save the remaining vanilla and chocolate icing for any personalized decorations you may want to do, or use it on the leftover cupcakes.
Spread the brown icing on the island first, then create grass with a icing decorator, make a little hole in a zip loc bag, and press it through, or use spread the green icing with a knife and use a fork to create a grass effect.
Spread the blue icing over the entire cake. If you use an icing decorating tool, it will take more icing. However, a perfect wavy effect can be created, if you spread out the blue icing on the cake, and then take a fork and move it in a wavy motion.
Use glittering sprinkles to make the sand and/or ocean sparkle.
Decorate the ocean cake with shark candy and small Swedish fish.
Make the gummy bears sunbathe on the island.
Add a couple of decorative umbrellas for extra effect.
Kids love candy on a cake, but to make everyone happy, make sure to bring along the remaining gummy bears and/or Swedish Fish to put on their individual cake pieces, after the cake has been cut.

The Budget:
I mainly used ALDI baking ingredients to make this beach cake. Some I had to buy, some I had in my pantry. The most expensive item on the cake was the six blue sharks, which cost me $4 at a candy store in the mall. You can see my Aldi Homemade Birthday Cake shopping trip here.

1 dozen Aldi Eggs $0.74

All purpose flour $1.69

Aldi sugar $2.63

2 x Aldi Vanilla Icing @ $1.29

1 x Aldi Chocolate Icing @ $1.29

1 x Haribo gummi bears @ $0.89

1 x Small Swedish Fish from Target $1.19

16 oz Sour cream from Publix $2.19
6 x Large Gummy Sharks $4

Cost $17.20

To get the same amount of cake at Publix, I would have spent $36+, and the cake would not have been personalized in the same way as I did.

Unfortunately, I did not get to take a photo of the inside of the cake, until after we got home from the party, so please excuse the melted icing on the photo to your right. As you can see, the cake is very dense.

This cake is a very tasty and quite dense chocolate cake, and it has a very rich cake density. This is not like the fluffy cakes you get from using a cake mix, it has a very luxurious and heavy texture.

I love this chocolate cake, because of the density, as I am not a fan of the fluffy cake mixes that crumbles easily. This cake is sweet, but not too sweet, and it is chocolatey, but not too chocolatey, and my kids love it.

Tip for picky party guests:
One of my son’s best friends does not like chocolate, so I decided to hold off with mixing the cocoa until after I mixed the rest of the batter. This way I could make a couple of non-chocolate cupcakes for my son’s friend. It might be an extra step, but my son’s friend was amazed to see that I had made special cupcakes just for him. It was one small change that went a long way, and it just reminded me of how little it takes to make a child happy.

You can find the base, which I used for my beach cake here. You can also find another homemade birthday cake here.