Fruity Fads: The Battle Between Birthday Cakes and Fruit Stacks

Archive note: This opinion piece was published in 2017. It records the fruit-stack trend and my very cake-biased reaction to it at the time. The linked Anges products are still current, but the jokes and cultural references below belong to that original period.

What’s with all the birthday cake bashing?

So apparently, like the smash cakes I talked about in a recent post, birthday fruit platters are a ‘thing’. Sometimes I’m grateful I miss these trends while I’m busy in the Anges bubble making cakes for days… Because seriously, you couldn’t make this stuff up.

Fruit + Nothing Doesn't Equal Cake Peeps

I think fruit and cake make a brilliant partnership- the raspberries in our Berry Peanut Buttercup Cake or the banana in our Banoffee Milkshake Cupcakes are perfect examples- but surely taking the cake bit out of it leaves you with… normal boring fruit?! 

Beckham's Cake was a snooze fest

On her 38th birthday, Victoria Beckham tweeted a pic of a birthday fruit platter- complete with fancy writing in chocolate around the plate a la restaurant dessert- and the tabloids went crazy for it. I mean this was seriously newsworthy stuff as you can imagine, so it’s not surprising that articles popped up all over the place pondering her choice of birthday dessert.

You’re not fooling me with those tiers of watermelon | Pic via Pepperscraps

You just don't like cake

And it seems that a plate of chopped up fruit became a bit of a food trend amongst people looking for an alternative to birthday cake. (And, yes, there are also the strange breed of individuals who simply don’t like cake. They should probably wear a badge so we know not to sit next to them.)

Fruit Cakes - you won't last

Naturally with most trends, the interwebs picks it up and runs off with it. Which is probably how fruit ‘cakes’ came into existence. These stacks of fruit are carefully carved and put together to look just like a birthday cake- complete with birthday candles.

Pretty! Still not a cake though | Pic via Weelicious

Fruit is never gonna be Cake

Fans of this fruit/cake mashup say it’s a cheerful alternative to traditional cake at a kid’s birthday party. And, according to Apartment Therapy: “would they really notice if this large fruit rainbow was there instead?”

Ummmm YES?!

Mummy, where’s my birthday cake? | Pic via Momstown

Don’t get me wrong, I totally understand how hard it is to celebrate occasions when you have food intolerances or a restrictive diet, or when a family simply prefers fruit. But can we remember the joyful, sweet sentiment of the birthday cake for a moment?

Birthday Cake is Once A Year

It’s just once a year that you get to have a cake made specially for you. You can have your favourite flavours, your favourite colours, whatever you want. If fruit is your thang, then by all means have a bucket load of the stuff. But if you’re craving a super special slice of birthday cake, then go for it!

What fresh hell is this? Raw vegetables are NOT birthday cake material! | Pic via The Running Nutritionist

Birthday Cakes are not the Devil

Birthday cake does not need to become a moral test. Different people make different choices about food, and a birthday is a perfectly good time to choose the thing that feels celebratory to you.

But then, I’m just a mad cake lady so what do I know?

Allow me to tempt you with one of our delicious birthday cakes... and if all this talk of fruit has got you craving a proper fruity tasting cake, we’ve crammed a load of lemons into our Triple Decker Lemon Sunshine Cake- check it out!