There’s a certain school of thought that says that celebrating your birthday after adolescence, or at the latest the age of 21, is inherently immature. I suppose the thought process is this: that celebration of the self is narcissistic, that asking all your loved ones to stand in a circle and sing a song with your name in it is a bit silly, that nobody needs to be confronted with the grim specter of their own morality over a Fudgie the Whale cake.
These people probably have a point. And I know that they have their good points, because my husband — a Virgo, a planner, a maker of lists, an owner of 20 pairs of the same exact color and brand of socks for easier matching, a man I refer to sometimes only half-jokingly as the logistics king — is among them.
We met 13 years ago, right before his birthday. When I found out the big day was around the corner, I asked him what he was going to do to celebrate, probably angling for a party invitation. The answer? Nothing. To him, it was just another day.
I’m a world-class boundary respecter, let me tell you, but I wasn’t going to take that one at face value. I put the date in my calendar, and when it came around I, someone he had been dating for just a bit over a month, someone he barely knew, someone who should have realized that this all might come off as, well, a bit much, baked a tiny six-inch layer cake, coated it in chocolate frosting, decorated it with sprinkles, and left it in front of his door. A little piece of sweetness, small enough that he didn’t have to share. Something just for him alone.
In retrospect, this was a bit of a bunny-boiler move, but hey, who is her most rational self in the middle of a crush? Fortunately, he was similarly blinded by love, and also fortunately, my mother’s 1234 cake recipe is a true crowd-pleaser. He thought it was charming and delicious. Reader, he kept me. And now it’s a decade and change later and we have two young children, one of whom is old enough to help with the baking, and again, I find myself making the birthday hater I love a cake.
Because my personal feeling is this: you only get so many birthdays. Why not celebrate them? I happen to come from an exceptionally long-lived family, but, even in the best-case scenario, that gives me only 90-odd chances to celebrate the miracle that is being alive. To share something sweet with the people who love me and know that they’re also happy I’m here. Why not take advantage of that? Why should we wait until it’s too late to throw a celebration of life?
So, this year I’m involving the whole family. My 3-year-old is helping mix and taste-test. The baby is along for the ride. Next year, she’ll be mixing, he’ll be measuring, probably still wearing the apron I made him for Christmas, decorated with a felt choo-choo train and blocky letters spelling out his name. Before I know it, they’ll be teenagers, too cool to help mom in the kitchen. And then they’ll be mostly out of my life, immersed in loves and heartbreaks and sweetnesses of their own. Maybe when they move out, when it’s just me and their dad again, I’ll make him another tiny six-inch cake.
Birthdays are a way of marking the passing of time, of saying, hey, we’re still here, we’re still together, the sweetness of our lives still feels vivid and urgent and real. And if that’s not worth making a homemade ice cream cake for, I don’t know what this is.
I <3 Aging and Dying Ice Cream Cake
Ingredients
Cake:
1 stick of room-temperature butter
1 cup sugar
¼ tsp kosher salt
2 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp baking powder
⅔ cup unsweetened cocoa
3 eggs
1¼ cups cake or all-purpose flour
¾ cups milk
Ice cream:
1 tub store bought ice cream or:
1 cup milk
2 cups cream
½ cup sugar
Generous pinch salt
6 egg yolks
1 tbsp cornstarch
½ cup strawberry jam
(Note: If you’re going homemade, you’ll need an ice cream maker)
Frosting:
2 cups whipped cream
⅓ cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Generous pinch of salt
¼ cup tangy dairy of choice — lebneh, crème fraîche, or sour cream
Method
Ice Cream:
Mix your milk, cream, sugar, and salt in a heavy-bottomed pot and bring to a boil on the stove. While you wait, whisk together the egg yolks and cornstarch until smooth.
Lower milk to a simmer, then temper yolks with a splash of milk before stirring through the rest of the pot. When your custard begins to thicken, remove from the heat and stir jam through until incorporated.
Chill at least two hours or overnight (ideally!), then make according to your ice cream maker’s instructions.
Cake:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Rub butter all over a springform cake pan, lining with a dusting of sugar if desired.
Mix your butter and sugar until smooth, then add in the salt, vanilla, baking powder, and cocoa. Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing until fully incorporated.
Once the eggs are mixed in, add half the flour, mix until blended, then the milk, finishing off with the rest of the flour. Be careful not to overmix here; an indelicate hand will give you a flat cake.
Pour batter into your prepared pan, and bake for about 35 minutes, until a tester inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Let cool completely in the pan before proceeding to the assembly stage.
Frosting:
Whip together your cream, vanilla, sugar, and pinch of salt until mixture starts to thicken. Stir in a dollop of your tangy dairy of choice and whip until stiff peaks form. Set aside until ready to assemble the cake.
Assembly
Once all your ingredients are ready, assemble your cake. Scoop a layer of ice cream on top of the cooled cake, freeze for at least 4 to 6 hours, and then frost with your whipped cream. Serve, or eat all by yourself with a single fork and candle. You deserve it.
Emily Beyda’s writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Built, Refinery29, Smartmouth, Fodors, the Thrillist, the Austin Chronicle, and more. Her novel, “The Body Double,” was published in 2021.
