Baking an Italian birthday cake for our one year old Livia

And so, you’re one, Livia. You were born when the blackberries ripen in the hedgerows, when the first thunderstorms cool down the summer heat.

Last year I had a late lunch after what felt like an interminable labour with you asleep next to me, my first lunch as a mum, with pasta al pomodoro, pork loin, and the best baked apple I have ever had. Today we’ll be feasting on roast chicken, pasta al pesto, and a birthday cake for you.

You grow up in such a hurry, Livia.

There are traits of your character and personality that only lasted for a blink of an eye, that defined you, that helped us become your mum and dad, and love you every day more fiercely. You outgrew clothes, habits, and rituals. The smell of milk under your chin; your deep newborn blue eyes that lasted as long as I breastfed you – even though your dad has always claimed you’ll have green eyes, just like your mum -; the Christmas carols and the hits of my teenage years sung as lullabies; holding you next to my heart with just one hand; your toothless gummy smiles.

My evening rituals to be ready during the night to feed you and the red cotton bag I would drag everywhere with your milk bottle and your pacifier; drawing your crib next to our bed to have you close at night. Your pouting lower lip when you had enough milk; harmonizing my breath to that of a baby sleeping on my chest; your many naps and your involuntary smiles; the grated pear smeared on your face as a nurturing mask.

That beige cardigan that made you look like a country landlady and the yellow hoodie that gave you a striking resemblance to Greta; your first bath on the bathroom floor and the following ones on the kitchen table; your pink pyjamas and the silly song your dad invented for you. The kisses you gave to the sweet girl in the mirror, and the excitement to see a baby your age for the first time.

Now you are one year old.

Your attempts to walk are brave, fearless, and enthusiastic. You pretend to be speaking on the phone – you are a pandemic lockdown baby after all – and call gnana all your relatives. Sometimes I am mamma for you, and sometimes mamma is a passing cat, a door, or your dad. We have to shower you after every meal, as you like to use pesto as a hair conditioner. You want fruit, especially watermelon – I fear this must be connected to the large amount of watermelon I ate during my last months of pregnancy -, pasta al pesto, chicken, sea bream, and sole. You eat cherry tomatoes with rapture and munch on whole cucumbers for breakfast.

Cabinet doors, drawers, lids, caps, and corks fascinate you: when you enter your small, faded, plastic house in the garden, you love nothing more than opening and closing the shutters, and you do it just like a tiny, Tuscan, Snow White. Your favourite pastime at the moment is reading books: first, you literally devoured them, developing a passion for the cardboard taste, now you take your little books to whoever is sitting on the couch for you to read. You turn the pages, open the tiny windows, and you’re ready for the next one.

Noa and Teo sniffed you around for a while, until you became a reassuring presence and a dispenser of already licked food for them. You fall asleep in the afternoon hugging your dad in the baby carrier, while at night it’s my turn: we cuddle on the sofa, while you’re fiddling with your favourite dudu, stretching your legs like a ballerina. We often fall asleep together.

In a few days, you’ll start a new exciting adventure, nursery school.

I wonder where my little tiny baby went, while I pile up your clothes now twice as big as those your dad and I chose together last year, our first trip after the lockdown, the first time we entered a baby shop, excited, curious, overwhelmed, and scared.

Now that you are a big one-year-old girl, it is time to pass the baton. For a lifetime, this has been my birthday cake, first baked by your great-grandma and decorated for me by your nonno, then my solo project since I was a teenager, and I was attempting my first steps as a home baker. So, Livia, now you have your birthday cake. We will decorate it together, and you will be allowed to use all the sprinkles, flowers, colours, and candies your bubbling, cheerful personality will want.

The Italian Birthday Cake

This has been my birthday cake for decades, and probably also a fixture of birthday parties for all the Italian kids my age.

It is a classic sponge cake, sliced into three layers, soaked in alchermes, and filled with vanilla pastry cream and chocolate pastry cream. My nonna would frost it with a traditional icing, often in a shade of pale pink given by a few drops of alchermes. My dad, not a pastry chef but the most resourceful man I know, would pipe chocolate from a pastry bag to decorate the cake, writing my name, my age, and adding a few doodles, all for the final photo that would be printed and attached into the family album.

It is a versatile birthday cake. Let me show you in how many ways you can make it yours.

The soaking liquid.

I always opt for alchermes, the crimson Florentine liqueur. You can read more about its fascinating history and how to make it here. Diluted with a part of water, it has just the perfect intensity and colour shade for the cake. It has the taste of my childhood and an old-fashioned, romantic colour.

If you cannot find alchermes, try with coffee – black and without sugar for a more adult taste that will remind tiramisu, or even diluted either with water or milk. Should you prefer a citrusy aroma, make a sugar syrup by boiling water and sugar in the same quantities with orange or lemon zest until glossy and thick. If you are in a hurry, choose pineapple juice or milk.

The filling.

My grandmother used to make a layer of lemon pastry cream and a layer of chocolate pastry cream, just as described in the recipe below. I follow the family tradition without questioning it, but there would be thousands of possible alternatives. Think about a winning match like whipped cream and strawberry jam, whipped ricotta with chocolate drops, or even pastry cream folded into some whipped cream to make it fluffy and lighter. I would even dare a thick layer of chocolate mousse.

The frosting and the decoration.

I remember that this has been my first task: whisking the egg white with icing sugar and a drop of lemon juice with a fork in a ceramic shallow bowl until thick, bright white, and glossy. There wasn’t a second thought on smearing raw egg white on cakes: I’ve had countless frosted cakes, and I’m still here to tell you this story. I’m a bit more conscious about raw eggs today, though, so my first advice would be to buy pasteurized egg whites.

This year I opted for a Swiss meringue buttercream [I followed Zoe Bakes’ recipe] – I wanted a good picture of Livia with a cake we could all remember -, but some whipped cream, even mixed with mascarpone, would be just as incredible. For the chocolate lovers out there, frost the cake with chocolate ganache. If you are in a hurry, a dusting of icing sugar will do.

As for the decoration, choose sugar flowers, sprinkles, candies, fresh fruit, berries, or whatever you like, or, if you are as talented as my dad, you can write with melted chocolate on the cake, using a pastry bag (it is easier than it looks). This year I opted for blackberries, a late summer fruit just like Livia.

A little trick. If the edges are not as smooth as you would want – and if you are generous with the filling, it might happen – use ladyfingers to fence the cake and secure them with a ribbon.

Livia, put on your best smile as we want to carry on the family tradition!

Link Love – All about the Italian birthday cake

Let’s have a look at more Italian classic cakes that double as perfect birthday cakes.

• Pasta Margherita is a century-old recipe from my beloved Artusi, it is a gluten-free cake made with just four simple ingredients: eggs, potato starch, sugar, and lemon juice. It is soft and light, like the best sponge cakes, with a distinctive lemon taste that will immediately win you.
• Ricotta Sponge Roll Cake. One of the desserts that I always keep as an ace up my sleeve is our rotolo. It is a biscuit rolled up on itself, brushed with a soaking syrup, and filled with whatever you have at hand. The original recipe is that of my grandmother, a rotolino with an alchermes soaking syrup and pastry cream or chocolate.
• Torta Paradiso, as baked by Loreto and Nicoletta. Torta Paradiso is a classic Italian cake from the 19th century, with an unforgettable, paradisiac texture (hence, the name): soft, crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth.

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