Number Cake

Learn how to make the perfect number cake for your birthday parties and other occasions! Everything you need to know about this number cake, how to make it, which crust and fillings to choose and all my tips to make it successful.

What is number cakes?

The number cake is a very popular recipe on social networks and pinterest, created by a young Israeli baker Adi Klinghofer.

With its original and graphic shape which makes all its success, the number cake recipe is the ultimate cake for celebrating a birthday next to the layer cakes.

This recipe of number cake is easily declined in all the shapes to make a letter cake (alphabet cake) or still under other symbols like heart cake or in shape of ring, perfect for a wedding cake.

Mostly made of 2 sweet crust bases assembled in a sandwich and filled with a creamy frosting. You can customize this birthday cake according to your tastes and desires and decorate it with fresh fruits, chocolate, and candies.

Composition

Sweet shortcrust pastry and templates

To make a number cake we generally use a sweet shortcrust or as here a homemade amond sandy sweet shortcrust pastry (pâte sablée).

We make first a sanding by mixing flour, with powdered sugar, almond meal and unsalted cold butter, then we add an egg which comes to bind the dough.

Then cut the dough into the desired shape with a small knife and a pattern using the templates below to print on a sheet of A4 paper (8,3 x 11,7 inches).

But you can just as easily use a puff pastry sheet in a savory or sweet version or a vanilla or chocolate genoise sponge sheet.

Fillings

All kinds of frosting can be used to make a number cake, a mascarpone whipped cream, vanilla buttercream, a dark whipped chocolate ganache, etc..

It is important to use a frosting with a firm enough texture to prevent it from collapsing under the weight of the sweet shortcrust and decorations.

The best frosting recipe is the diplomat cream, the same one that is used in the French Fraisier cake. It is simply a pastry cream with gelatine into which we then incorporate heavy whipping cream.