Birthdays are a labor of love!

So last month I decided that I would tackle the challenge of making Mr. Tana-Licious' birthday cake. I knew that I wanted to use fondant in some form... and that my darling fiance loves cream cheese icing & cinnamon. How to incorporate all 3 became my challenge... and I knew that I wanted to do it mostly all from scratch!

I found a recipe on Food Network for a Spicey Cinnamon cake (courtesy of Paula Deen!) and decided that that would be a solid base... and with a few tweaks I could make it work. Then, I took a classic buttercream recipe & adapted it to make it into a cream cheese frosting.

The result? Heavenly! The cake was moist & delicious and the frosting was soooo good... the cream cheese really works with the buttercream to give that sweet, but not too sweet taste.

Here are the recipes... I'll post pics after the recipes! Remember: the recipes have been tripled from their original amounts due to the amount of cake I was making! Enjoy :)

Cinnamon Swirl Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting


Cinnamon Swirl Birthday Cake
(adapted from Paula Deen’s Spicy Cinnamon Cake)
*Note: this recipe makes a 2 tiered cake (10” & 8”)

3 packages white cake mix
3 4-serving packages of instant vanilla pudding mix
3 cups of sour cream
12 eggs
1 ½ C corn oil
7/8 C + 1 T of sugar
2 T cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease cake pans.

Combine cake mix, instant pudding, sour cream, eggs, and corn oil and beat together well.

In a separate bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon.

Pour 3 C batter into prepared pan # 1 and sprinkle with half of sugar mixture. Pour another 3 C of batter on top.

Pour 1 ½ C of batter into prepared pan # 2 and sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture. Pour remaining 1 ½ C of batter on top.

Bake 1 hour. Let cool and remove from pans.



Cream Cheese Frosting
*Note: this recipe has been tripled to frost a 2 tiered cake*

3 - 8 oz. packages of cream cheese
1 C + 2 T of shortening
9 C powdered sugar
3 dashes of salt
¾ C of milk
3 t of vanilla
3 T of meringue powder

Cream shortening, cream cheese, milk, vanilla.

Add salt & mix.

Beat in sugar & meringue until desired consistency has been reached.


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Now for photos...


The cake!!!


All lit up! Sparkler candles!


The inside... loved that swirl!