The Perfect Naked Birthday Cake

Last month our sweet little boy turned one, and to mark this special milestone I decided to bake a forest-themed naked madeira cake for his party. This was a suprisingly easy cake to make, but the outcome is really lovely! Jesse absolutely loved it (though mostly because of the candles!) and it made a special day even more wonderful.

Here’s how you can recreate this delicious, child-friendly cake.

The Cake Recipe

There are lots of cake recipes out there but if you’re making a birthday cake it’s always best to go for some variation of a madeira cake. Madeira cakes make the best birthday cakes because they’re firm enough to support icing and toppings without crumbling or collapsing.

Madeira cake become a little dry if you’re not careful, so you need to watch carefully so you don’t overbake it. Some people like to add flavoured sugar syrup to their cakes after baking, to add some flavour and moisture to the cake.

There are plenty of recipes available that will give you a great cake. I used this one by Sally’s Baking Addiction. I used three separate tins to bake the cake because I did one chocolate layer, one coffee and one vanilla, so that there was some variation in colours on the outside. I think it sort of looks like you’re seeing through the layers of the forest floor!

That being said, baking three separate cakes can make your cake a little wonky (mine was!) so if you want a perfectly even cake then it’s better to bake the cake in one tall tin and then slice it into three after it’s baked.

Assembling the Naked Cake (including the Best Buttercream Recipe!)

The beauty of a naked cake lies in its assembly. For our little one’s birthday cake, I decided to keep the icing minimal and let the cake layers shine. To assemble, I made a simple buttercream frosting using this recipe by Cupcake Jemma which is easily the best buttercream recipe ever! I doubled the amounts for this size of cake, so the amounts used were:

300g unsalted butter, softened
680g icing sugar, sifted
6-8 tbsps milk

To assemble the cake, pipe or spoon buttercream onto the cakes and gently place the layers one on top of the other. Then take a cranked pallet knife and gently smooth some buttercream onto the outside of the cake, scraping off the excess to leave a smooth surface. Finally top the cake with the remaining buttercream to make it look like snow!

The Cake Decoration

For the top of the cake I wanted to do something that would be quick and easy! I made the little bunting with two twigs, a little twine, and some tiny pieces of brown paper. Simply cut the brown paper into tiny diamond shapes and then fold them over the twine and glue.

Finally I added a few little Schleich forest animals and a single beeswax birthday candle for our one year old!

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