Need recipes for a 1st Bday cake!

[annsquared]

Hello All,
I am brand new to this forum and relatively inexperienced in the world of baking. I am trying to find the perfect recipe for my daughter's first birthday cake. I am using a mold of a bee hive (it's the Nordicware beehive pan). I tried a regular out of the box chocolate cake (just as an experiment) and it worked, but it turned out too dark and didn't quite have enough 'heft' to pull off the mold. Then I tried a pound cake and the color was wonderful, but the 'crust' that always seems to come with poundcake isn't ideal for a 1st bday cake.
Anyone have any suggestions that will yield a nice brown color, that's dense enough for a mold, but soft enough for a little one to eat???? TIA!!!!

 

[dillonsmimi]

I have at one time or another have been gifted most of the NW bundt pans. I was most excited with the one with teeny reproductions of all their big bundt molds. Could not find a cake recipe that would show the patterns (spoke with the NW customer service and their executive pastry chef , got recipes from both. No go.). Cut my losses and exchanged my pans for other products. I got the idea that the R&D people and the pastry people knew the pans blew. So my advice to you...use the pound cake and either brush with simple syrup to soften of just give the babe a piece from the interior.

 

[pastrylover]

To me a pefect cake for a young kid would be just a simple genoise cake. light and fluffy.

 

[dillonsmimi]

No way would a genoise fill in the ridges and duplicate the designs on these pans. Quality Cookware, Kitchenware, and Bakeware from Nordic Ware - Nordic Ware A pound cake recipe is ideal for the large sizes but the really cute tiny replication pans simply don't work. If someone has one of those babies and can prove me wrong, please go ahead and do so. I saved the pan with the smallest petit four designs just in case I stumbled across the solution somewhere.

 

[lovelove77]

Good luckwith bady first cake