Champagne and birthday cake

There’s a memorable line in Beth Henley’s play, “Crimes of the Heart,” when one of the characters — who has recently discovered her sister murdered her abusive husband — says, “Oh, how I do love having birthday cake for breakfast.”

And it’s true. Nothing else is quite as satisfying as birthday cake for breakfast. Except champagne and birthday cake, though not usually for breakfast. Birthday cake, the most celebratory of foods, and champagne, the most celebratory of beverages go together like peas and carrots, as Forrest Gump would say.

The presence of a birthday cake means that someone at the table has managed to live another year, and that is always worth celebrating. And celebrating is what champagne is made for.

Real champagne, made in the Champagne region of France, using a laborious medieval process to capture bubbles in the bottle, can be prohibitively expensive. Which could explain why it usually makes an appearance only at very festive occasions, with the definition of festive dictated by one’s means.

There are alternatives. Prosecco from Italy, cava from Spain, or sparkling wine made and sold in America that claims to be champagne but is actually not. (France did not act quickly enough to trademark the word in the United States.) But any of these wines will make birthday cake even more special than it already is.

And now, the miracle of modern technology has brought us champagne in a can to facilitate celebrations and birthdays on even the slimmest of budgets. Not actual champagne but a quite serviceable Italian sparkling wine that is not bottled, but canned, in single-serving cans. Every birthday celebrant can pop the time on their very own can of bubbly for about the cost of a soda from a machine. What a wonderful world in which we live.

Birthday cake, of course, is not any particular flavor or style of cake. A cake becomes a birthday cake because it’s somebody’s birthday. And usually, there are candles. Recipes follow for a simple vanilla cake which can be filled with any number of tasty fillings, like lemon or raspberry. In fact, a jar of raspberry jam or lemon curd, straight from a jar, makes for a low maintenance filling solution. Good old-fashioned American buttercream tastes just like Grandma used to make.

If the birthday boy or girl likes chocolate, go old school with a chocolate mayonnaise cake. Like a lot of Depression-era recipes, it’s a little weird but unbelievably moist and delicious. Fill with caramel and frost with chocolate birthday cake that is down-home delicious and your chocoholic loved one will be ready to face another year.

Vanilla Cake

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pans

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pans

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 large eggs

3 large egg yolks

2 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 cup low-fat buttermilk (may substitute plain yogurt or sour cream (not fat-free)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour two 8-by-2-inch cake pans, tapping out excess flour. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. With mixer on low, beat in eggs and yolks, one at a time. Beat in vanilla. Alternately beat in flour mixture and buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture; mix just until combined. Divide batter between pans; smooth tops. Bake until cakes pull away from sides of pans, 32 to 35 minutes. Let cool in pans 10 minutes. Run a knife around edges of pans and invert cakes onto a wire rack. Let cool completely. Place one cake, bottom side up, on a cake stand. Tuck strips of parchment paper underneath. Using an offset-spatula or table knife, spread top with frosting. Top with remaining cake; frost top, then sides.

Old-fashioned Buttercream

Makes about 3 cups

8 ounces (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 ounces (1/4 cup) milk or heavy cream, at room temperature

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat room temperature butter until light and smooth, 1 to 2 minutes. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar (to prevent it exploding upward when you turn on the mixer), and mix on medium-low speed to combine. Once all the sugar is added, raise speed to medium-high and cream until light and fluffy, 4 to 5 minutes. Add vanilla extract or other flavoring and mix to combine. If using milk or cream, pour it in and mix just until incorporated. The buttercream can be used immediately or refrigerated in an airtight container.

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

Makes one 9” double layer cake

2 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. espresso powder (optional, for enhanced chocolate flavor)

3 eggs, at room temperature

1 2/3 cups sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup mayonnaise

1 1/3 cups water

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour (or grease and line with parchment rounds) two 9” round cake pans. Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and espresso powder (if using). In a large bowl or stand mixer, beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla on high speed until very light and fluffy (at least 3 minutes). Reduce the speed to low and add the mayonnaise, beating until well-combined. Add the flour mixture and the water to the batter in three additions, alternating between the wet and dry. Mix until just combined. Don’t overmix! Divide the batter evenly between the two pans and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake just begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a wire rack to cool. Fill and frost with your favorite recipes. Any buttercream works well. Recipes follow for a simple caramel sauce filling to go between the layers and a basic chocolate buttercream for the outside.

Caramel Sauce filling

1¼ cups sugar

¼ cup water

5 tbsp.heavy cream

5 tbsp. salted butter, cubed

1 tbsp. crème fraiche or sour cream

Combine the sugar and water in a medium saucepan and set over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil, swirling occasionally until the sugar has melted but without stirring. Simmer for about 10 minutes, swirling the pot every once and a while, until the sugar turns a dark amber color. Do not let it get too dark, or it will taste burnt. As soon as the sugar reaches the right color, remove it from the heat and carefully add the cream, whisking all the time (the mixture will bubble up as you do this, so use an oven mitt or a long-handled whisk). Whisk in the butter gradually and then the crème fraiche. Set aside to cool for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Put in the fridge to firm up a little.

Chocolate frosting

1 cup heavy cream

17 1/2 ounces milk chocolate or 55% to 62% dark chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/4 tsp. salt, plus more to taste

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, very soft

Put the cream, chocolate, and salt in a medium stainless steel bowl. Bring an inch of water to a simmer in a wide skillet. Turn off the heat and set the bowl of chocolate in the water. Let it rest for 15 minutes, gently shaking the bowl several times to submerge the chocolate in the cream. When the chocolate is melted, start whisking at one edge and continue whisking until all of the chocolate is incorporated and the mixture is smooth. Add the butter in chunks and whisk once or twice to break them up; let the mixture rest for 5 minute to finish melting the butter before whisking it smooth. Taste and adjust salt if necessary. Set aside, without mixing or disturbing, until needed. If the frosting is stiff by the time you need it, set the bowl in a pan of hot water to soften it, stirring occasionally until smooth and just pourable. Scrape the frosting over the cake and spread it evenly.