1

So I stopped by this article when checking out the cake category. It surprisingly does not have a lot of steps and could use a bit of detail. This topic is commonly searched online so I was sort of worried when I saw this articles. I’d love to give it a go but I’ll need some help. I’m thinking maybe the article should mention different types of frosting you can use, toppings, different themed cakes. etc. Let me know what you guys think. 

2

I have no experience with birthday cakes, but I’ve done some basic baking before, and looking at this, I just want to give my input. I’m not going to make any edits, though, because I’m not sure I could pull it off smoothly with minimal information or knowledge on my end.

  • The article should be marked as Parts.

  • What currently exists in the article should be classified as Part One, which would be “Planning”, and expanded.

  • The second part, Baking the Cake, should discuss different types of cakes (e.g. layered cakes, sheet cakes, typical round cakes, ice cream cakes, etc. etc.), general baking instructions, and maybe a few cake recipes weaved in here and there.

  • The third part, Decoration, would have information on how to frost the cake, add decorations, or design a theme - like you mentioned, @WikihowSaver .

  • There should probably also be a fourth part, Storing, since most birthday cakes won’t be served immediately after being made, and from my understanding, cakes often need to be chilled, sometimes for several hours, to prevent frosting or ice cream from melting. It would need to discuss how to adequately store the cake to make sure it doesn’t get damaged, or develop freezer burn if it needs to be placed in the freezer.

This is how the article is forming in my mind. Can anybody else pitch in?

3

^ +1

I really like this idea. If we actually get it together like that it may even get featured. I’m going to do some more research on birthday cakes and chip in. Everybody is more than welcome to help out. 

4

I made some tweaks here  so that the article can be built off of. I didn’t add an InUse, since I don’t think I can really do this article justice, but I’ll let someone else take on this one.:slight_smile: @WikihowSaver , if you’d like to pitch in, I’d love to see what you can come up with.

5

Or - you could consider that any one of the many thousands of cakes that can be made can be presented and served as birthday cake and scrap an article that cannot describe how to make every type of cake conceivable…

6

@HumanBeing , we weren’t trying to conceive that type of notion. It’s obvious there are different types of birthday cakes. But I think it would be better to have an article that _isn’t _a stub here that also links to several different cake recipes, so that people know the basic idea of making a birthday cake, and then can choose from several different recipes to make it from.

7

@HumanBeing I’m sorry if I’m wrong but are you being sarcastic? I am really bad at catching that type of stuff online =S 

As Alex said there are obviously millions of birthday cakes in the world… We’ll just post the simple ones like vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, etc and we’ll post the extras to the article like storing, frosting, themes, you get it. 

8

Me? Sarcastic? Yeah. I was. But I did mean it in a way too. Personally, I think how to make birthday cake is a silly article. If you want to do how to make every conceivable type of cake, well, that’s impossible. If you just want post the simple ones, won’t it be a duplicate of how to make vanilla cake (I have no idea…), how to make chocolate cake and how to make strawberry cake (what even is that?). See, where I come from, birthday cake is frequently a Victoria Sponge Cake, or, a 70 year old, for example, might have a rich fruit cake. I’ve had chocolate Gâteaux for my birthday and seen my friend make super elaborately decorated plain sponge cakes with buttercream filling for her daughters’ birthdays every year. I’m sure that no two people would have exactly the same concept of a typical birthday cake. The possibilities are endless. Maybe, how to choose a cake for a birthday celebration would be a better title and how to make a birthday cake could redirect users to that article? It could cover - choosing a shop bought cake and decorating it yourself, suggestions of all the cake recipes here, advice on what may or may not be appropriate for certain age groups, storage, transportation, etc. Or, maybe that idea is nuttier than a fruitcake?

9

@WikihowSaver and @HumanBeing - I actually think we should discourage posting an actual recipe itself in this one. What I  was thinking was that we weave links to  recipes, in the article and in the Related wikiHows. That way, people understand the basics of the article, while still being able to pick the kind of cake they want.

I don’t think it really needs a title change. “How to make a birthday cake” is by far  the dominant search term over “how to choose a birthday cake” - check out the Google Trends search here . Additionally, I’m not really sure why we’d need a section on buying a store-bought cake. I’m not exactly sure where you are, HB, but in all my life, I’ve gone to bakeries and I’ve never once seen a blank cake that can be decorated on its own. It has always, at the minimum, had frosting on it. And scraping the frosting off of one piece of cake is a pain, I don’t think readers would want to do it to an entire cake just to frost it again.

This is just my point of view, but - if you’re going to get a bakery or store-bought cake, you aren’t making the cake. You’re buying it. It doesn’t matter what you do to it afterwards - you didn’t make the cake, and I can’t claim that that would be a good thing to put in a wikiHow article. I can imagine it would just discourage people who come here, looking to make a birthday cake, and then see that the first step is “Consider buying a store-bought cake.” That step would make me wonder why I even bothered coming here.

10

^ Alex is right and we already have an article on how to buy a birthday cake so if we add it here it will be considered a duplicate. I think we should just add another part which tells different types of cakes. 

11

@WikihowSaver , I’m imagining that would be in “Baking the Cake”, where different types of cake are listed.:slight_smile:

12

Whoops, just noticed. Thanks Alex. I’m all game for research. If anybody can find some sites about birthday cakes that’d be great because I’m trying to find as much as information as possible. 

13

In the UK and New Zealand it’s perfectly possible to purchase undecorated cakes. All the major supermarkets sell undecorated cakes. Madeira cake, plain fruit cake, Victoria Sponge, Chocolate Sponge Cake all can be decorated. You could, conceivably, choose to ‘make’ a birthday train cake from Swiss Rolls that you bought, put together, and decorated yourself. You don’t have to buy cake from a bakery. I don’t live anywhere weird by the way, just not in the USA, like thousands of other wikiHow users.

14

@HumanBeing , okay, yeah, that makes sense. But again, I don’t necessarily think that we should suggest buying  something. If somebody is looking to make a birthday cake, they’re looking to make  one. But as a compromise - what do you say about suggesting making non-traditional cakes by putting other kinds of sweets together (I’m basing this off your idea of the whole Swiss Roll thing, although I don’t actually know what those are, but I’m assuming they’re not cake) to make a cake, and then have that link to another article on how to make a cake out of non-cake things?

I assume wherever you live is probably a lot healthier than the USA. I live in the USA, and the food here… It’s a struggle to find organic food in a lot of areas, and as I already mentioned, all “undecorated” cakes are already frosted. The food here is loaded with yucky stuff, and way too much salt and sugar. But that’s irrelevant…

15

Swiss roll is totally cake. It’s a super thing sponge, spread with jam or jam and cream and rolled up carefully. Don’t you guys have Swiss roll in the U.S.? Interesting. Because it’s cylindrical, it makes a good steam engine for a train shaped cake. I’m gonna see if there’s a wikiHow to make Swiss Roll - thanks for potentially inspiring me!!

16

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that here, actually!

17

^^I’ve heard of Swill roll cake. You can get it in the U.S. too I’m sure.

18

Maybe it’s not in this area?

19

@Galactic-Radiance I believe they might be called cake or jelly rolls in North America?

20

They are swiss rolls from what I understand, but very unpopular except in the form of the lil debbie-style mini things. I only know because I still have nightmares of watching my classmates in grade school squeeze the mashed up cake from the wrapper. Gross.