You HAVE to make it! No fair buying, unless it's really high-end. As long as you make it, you're good. Our bday cakes growing up were usually from a cake mix, not from scratch. My favorite was lemon poppyseed bundt cake with lemon glaze. My sister's favorite was chocolate with chocolate frosting.

Now? I don't really celebrate birthdays with cake. The boy's mom generally makes cakes for us for birthdays, but we don't make them for ourselves usually. And no kids in our lives right now (our own or otherwise), so no cakes for littles either.

I love making cake from scratch, though. And I prefer plain with no frosting or just a light glaze myself. Or a big splash of heavy cream. Yum.

Growing up, each member of my immediate family had a cake that was their birthday cake. Mine was apple pie (which evolved to chocolate cherry cheesecake as a teen), Mom's was pineapple upside-down cake, Dad's was German's chocolate cake or carrot cake, and my sister's was strawberry shortcake. Family birthdays still have some semblance to these traditions, though I've mostly gotten over wanting a cake for my birthday (maybe a birthday steak instead?).

I've always been all over the map--I like to try something new. I have a little one though, and I warn parents: they imprint like ducklings on the first party they remember, and THAT's the party/cake you will be doing for some time! So it's ALWAYS red velvet layer cake with cream cheese frosting for the kid. On her way to a friend's party, she can predict what cake they'll have, based on last year.

When I turned 16, I requested a pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing for my birthday party (a summer pool party!), and two-tiered like a wedding cake. My mom usually used boxed mixes, except for pumpkin cake, which was (and is) a Christmas tradition. All my friends thought I was a weirdo, but I still remember it as my favorite birthday cake ever.

I almost always had lemon cake with lemon frosting, from a box and can of course.

box mix chocolate cake with chocolate frosting with the tiny round ball kind of candy sprinkles. Exactly this, every year. :-)

My family is like LEOwens's comment. Dad's cake was chocolate bundt cake with white mountain frosting, Mom gets angel food cake with strawberries, my sister's is chocolate/chocolate, and mine is vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream. And sprinkles.

Growing up my mom usually got a store-bought cake for birthdays, but now that I'm grown up I like to make my own birthday cake. I like trying new and fancy treats, since usually I'm a chocolate chip cookie kinda gal. This year I made a hazelnut chocolate ganache that turned out to be out of this world. My husband always requests the same cake--german chocolate cake with whipped cream instead of frosting--but his mom makes it since we celebrate with his family.

Growing up, my parents always bought a cake. It was usually a Nicaraguan cake, which is a basic white/yellow cake with a guava or pineapple filling and a sort of merengue icing. When the cake is about 2-3 days old, it will still be fresh, moist and edible because of the fruit filling, but the icing will have hardened a bit. Everyone's favorite part of the cake is the lightly crunchy and sweet frosting. :-D

Every now and then, they would switch it up and get a Colombian cake, which has a dulce de leche filling and a lighter frosting, or a Cuban cake, which has a different kind of merengue frosting (doesn't harden over days) and a custard filling. Once in a blue moon, they'd get an ice cream cake or something.

Now that all the kids are grown up and married with their own kids, my parents don't usually buy cakes because we'll take care of it. If I'm in charge of the cake, I make one from scratch--always a yogurt cake base. My sister will buy any cake she finds pretty and my brother will buy a Nicaraguan cake out of nostalgia.

I would say cake is my favorite dessert. It's the one thing that always makes me want to eat it uncontrollably if I see it in a picture or on the TV.

I didn't know there was such a thing as a modern cake. Aren't they all traditional?

I grew up with Baskin Robin's ice-cream cake for my birthday. But I'm a make it from scratch kind of girl. So, every year I ask my husband what he wants. Last year, it was Texas Sheet Cake. This year he told me—something with lemon and raspberry. So I made him a pink cake. Oops!
http://thefauxmartha.com/2011/05/10/lemon-raspberry-cake/

my birthday is on Christmas, so my mom would go to great lengths to make my birthday cake special, in high school she started letting me thumb through Southern Living magazines and picking cakes out of them! One year I chose a cake that took four of my family members to bake! it involved shortbread angels, a white truffle filling, and three layers of cake! yummmmm!

For my birthday I usually get, and absolutely love, a grocery store cake smothered in frosting so sweet your teeth hurt. The kind with the big fluffy frosting roses.

I make up for it by doing homemade cakes for every other occasion during the year.

This topic has brought out my first post! My birthday cake growing up was Sarah Lee Pound Cake, with vanilla ice cream, and my mom's homemade hot fudge sauce - absolutely divine! The hot fudge got all chewy when poured over the cold ice cream, and the pound cake absorbed the melted ice cream and sauce - my mouth is watering just thinking about it. My happy childhood memories are few, but this is the best of the bunch! Thanks for a wonderful site, that gives me a lift every day!

My Chinese family never celebrated birthdays with cakes (just big multi-course dinners). and now cake is my favorite dessert category, to eat and to make. Guess I'm making up for lost time and I love all styles of cakes.

BTW, that white frosted one on the bottom right is gorgeous!

I choose a new cake every year. And I make them myself- even mine. Last year I had a honey butter cake, whilst I attemped profiteroles for my brothers birthday (half success, half failure). Birthdays are a great excuse to get extra cake fancy.

My mom made me angel food with pink, green and white batter that she plopped in and swirled a little, but it seemed like magic. My favorite part was the cardboard circle of frosting over the tube pan hole. She decorated with colored frosting flowers and a big bouquet of pink azaleas beside it.

People always think I'm being strict with myself when I pass on cake, but the truth is that there are a lot of us out there who just don't like it much.

Mini cupcakes are about the size of cake I'm interested in consuming in one sitting.

I'll take it any way.

I always got simple, quickbread-like cakes that weren't too sweet -- exactly the kind I like. I don't like fluffy, soft, sweet cakes with frosting, whether storebought or homemade. These days, I either make myself some lightened carrot cake (no frosting) or a pavlova.

Growing up, I usually had two birthday parties--one with kids, and one with family. The one with kids was usually a homemade cake, the one with family was a cake from one of the many good Italian bakeries in my area. Mine was usually yellow cake with cannoli cream and bananas or strawberries inside, whipped cream on the outsite. Nowadays, no kids party of course, but still have one with family every year, with a yummy cake from the same bakeries...

My husband always makes me my favourite cake; an exquisite version of a marble cake. No one, but no one, can make it as good!

I bake him whatever sort of cake he wants, or make him his favourite dessert. (He loves clafouti, and mine is awfully good)

My 7 year old daughter gets red velvet cake each year (what other kind of cake for a girl named Tallulah?!), and asks for pumpkin cupcakes with browned butter icing.

My son asks for the same cupcakes (everyone at their school begs me to make them whenever there is a bake sale or birthday), but so far, hasn't settled on a cake. He's had lime coconut, banana, chocolate... he's still searching.

Both kids though, get a cake with real French buttercream frosting and filling. (Tallulah's is made with raspberries...)

pumpkin pie is what i usually request..a little weird for my August birthday, but its my favorite

My husband grew up with birthday cakes from a bakery. His parents were over here from Indonesia for advanced degrees and they both worked too. No time for baking and it's a thing for Chinese Indos to get their cakes from the bakery so it probably didn't even occur to them to try and bake it. BUT what I really love is that his mom always had the bakery pipe the year on the side of the cake, which she then faced toward the camera at picture time. We always know how old hubby was in any birthday pic. Whereas my mom and I are always trying to puzzle out ny ages by looking over haircuts and clothes and which non-cousin friends were invited (I requested chocolate sheet cake with chocolate frosting every year until I was nineteen). It's so confusing! I'll be putting the year on all the cakes for my girls - bought or baked!

I've always been a funfetti cake girl. And now I insist on "assisting" with the preparation so I know I get to lick the beaters! I'm a simple kind of gal.