Vanilla Sprinkles Birthday Sheet Cake With Chocolate Frosting (PS: Baked Without A Mixer!)

For some reason, I really, really wanted to bake my own birthday cake this year. Shah wasn't on board at first, saying "But birthday girl shouldn't bake her own cake!", followed by "But I don't know how to bake...but let me buy a cake for you!"

Which was such a sweet gesture as he was adamant about not wanting me to lift a finger on my birthday. But that wasn't about to happen as I take my birthday food seriously, and somehow had the idea that a store-bought cake would not be satisfying enough for me this year — like I'd (weirdly) rather take an OK homemade cake over whatever fancy cake is out there.

One problem: I don't have a mixer in my house here in Johor. I kept waiting for the right time to go back to my hometown to bring my mixer over here but with the virus being unpredictable, the "right time" never arrived before my birthday rolled around. So naturally, my Google-loving savvy-self searched for "cake recipe without mixer" and voila, Google managed to come through, as always.

I'm all for a good basic vanilla cake with chocolate frosting! This One Bowl Vanilla Cake Recipe received good reviews and was easy enough to do without a mixer luckily; mixing the batter felt just like mixing pancakes. While I did whip out some pancakes for brunch on my birthday (another task I'd rather do myself than pass off to Shah), I decided to bake the cake the day before, refrigerate it, and frost it on the day itself.

The vanilla sheet cake came out pretty decent albeit a little thin, so I think an 8" round pan would be better than a square one. But I would absolutely make this again as it is SO breezy to do and tastes good.

To make a creamy frosting by hand seemed laborious but I was willing to give it a go. That is, until I saw readymade frosting being sold in the supermarket, which I had no idea even existed. I went for Duncan Hines Creamy Chocolate Frosting (never tried this brand, have you?) and truthfully was a little sceptical about the taste of store-bought frosting but it's surprisingly delicious — good enough that I was almost tempted to never bother with homemade frosting ever again.
As for the cake decor, I settled for a generous heap of good ol' sprinkles, which never fails to make baked goods appear as if some serious decorating effort was put in!

♡     ♡     ♡     ♡     ♡     ♡     ♡

Thank you for reading this post! Can't wait to share with you more of my homemade baked goods, made using recipes that are guaranteed to be the easiest on the world wide web because ya gal won't say no to shortcuts in cooking and baking.

To read about what I wore on my birthday (nope, didn't wear my usual PJs) and how I spent it, head over to Reflecting On The Gift Of Aging | Celebrating My 35th Birthday At Home.

Until my next post ❤