You’re so right about real buttercream…for many a year I thought I didn’t like wedding cake at all until I realized that part of the problem was the nasty frosting. My favorite frosting is actually a cream cheese buttercream mix, which just can’t be faked with shortening.

I have two of the Cake Doctor books by Anne Birn, one is strictly cupcake recipes. I love these books because you can use cake mixes and tweak them so they taste like from scratch desserts. But all her frostings are from scratch and what I like is that they are less sweet than can frostings. You don’t skimp out on the sugar though, but they’re not as heavy.

My birthday isn’t until January 29, so I have no idea what my cake will be. It won’t be homemade, as my mother uses the grocery store as her source of cakes.

Annalucia, my cakes – while tasty – will never be classed as particularly pretty. I do manage somehow to keep the layers more or less straight, but that’s as good as it gets, I’m afraid, in the ornamental aspect. Still, I firmly believe that taste trumps looks in food, if naught else. Then again, there’s no reason I would turn down a tasty homemade cheesecake or banana cream pie.

I think, too, that we should all follow the example of the fabulous gemdiva and celebrate our birthdays as long as we can possibly manage. In fact, I believe I’ve been celebrating mine for more than a week and intend to carry on doing so at least well into this week. If I can stretch it out over the entire month, I absolutely intend to.

Happy birthday from your birthday twin. My birthday was also on Saturday. My sweet man’s sister made me a delicious cake with delicate yellow flowers on it. I also believe you should celebrate a birthday as long as possible – a week is good.

I’m a December 1st baby. A Sagittarius (proud owners of expansive personalities and expensive tastes).

I’m making my own birthday cake this year too – flourless chocolate cake. This is my first gluten-free birthday after being diagnosed with celiac disease this summer, so I think I’m going to stick with something simple that I’ve made before, rather than mucking around with alternative flours. Although, reading this makes me want to whip up the gluten-free cake mix I’ve got stashed away and make some buttercream frosting to go on it.

The Annalucia can relate to this. When she and the Tedesco were first married he swore that he despised mayonnaise – until he actually tasted some. It seems that the Tedesco s Irish mother (a delightful lady in so many ways) bought only Miracle Whip, believing it to be mayonnaise, when of course it is no such thing.

Now the Annalucia is not the big consumer of mayonnaise (in fact she keeps it around only for making the sandwiches of tuna fish). Still, she is glad to have cleared up this serious culinary misunderstanding.

Alas she is unable to make a traditional frosted cake that both looks and tastes good – the layers always slide out of place, for a slightly inebriated effect – so for her own birthday she makes the chocolate cheesecake, and for that of the Tedesco she makes the banana cream pie, and everyone is happy.