"birthday" news and stories

Thanks to everyone who participated in our Birthday Cake Photo Contest and helped make Slashfood's first anniversary a memorable one, though of course it is the daily readership that we appreciate, and not just the submission of a photo! It was very difficult to choose a winner from all of the excellent entries, but after much deliberation, the winning photo was the above photo of a birthday cupcake submitted by Disney Mike

The runner up was the slashed apple cake submitted by Bonnie, who got bonus points for making an extremely appropriate cake for the occasion. To take a look at her cake, and at a handful of the other entries, just click past the jump. You'll have to view the whole photo pool to see all 47 submitted photos, though!

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Most families have one person who is responsible for baking the cakes for birthdays and other occasions. It might be a grandmother who bakes her famous coconut cake everyone loves or an enthusiastic child whose greatest love is elaborately decorating sheet cakes made with box mixes, but there is always one. When you are that one person, sometimes you run out of ideas. Even grandma must get tired of her coconut cake every once in a while.

Birthday Cakes: Recipes and Memories from Celebrated Bakers is a good book to get inspired by.

The book is packed with stunningly beautiful cakes, recipes to go with them and stories from bakers who moved from being "the one" in their family to making a career out of something that they loved to do. Recipes come from cooks like Alice Waters, Julia Child, James Beard and Alice Medrich. They are cakes that will take birthdays and other celebrations to a new level, not just variations on the same old thing, so if you're up for the challenge of tacking something new, like a Princess Cake, you will be well rewarded when it is met with oohs and aahs at serving time.

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Today is the last day to enter Slashfood's Birthday Cake Photo Contest. The deadline for entries is midnight Tonight, August 23rd. At that point, we will no long accept any photos (not that will be eligible to win, anyway) into our Birthday Cake Contest Flickr group. Your dedicated Slashfood team will then begin the long process of judging the photos and wishing we had thought to request samples of the delicious looking cakes!

You still have plenty of time to take a picture and upload it, so keep your camera with you in case you spot any photo-worthy cakes during the day. There are prizes at stake, so why not take a chance?

The winners will be announced here on Friday morning, so stay tuned to find out which photos take the cake.

It looks like meat ice cream isn't the only tasty treat that zoo animals are getting this summer. The giant panda Xin Xin, who resides at the Wild Animal Rescue and Breeding Center in Xi'an, China, celebrated his first birthday this month with apples, watermelon and - of course - birthday cake. We have no doubt that the cake was made with panda-friendly ingredients, but it actually looks pretty good. And Xin Xin is certainly enjoying it.

He's not the only panda to get served birthday cake, though. Click past the jump for some more pictures of pandas with their cakes.

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August marks the one year anniversary of Slashfood's launch. Somehow, it seems longer than that - but that's a good thing! While we were thinking of ways to celebrate, we decided that instead of trying to collect gifts, we would have a contest and give one away to a reader.

We love food porn from our other blogging friends, and we're not half bad photographers ourselves, but we know that some of you readers are just as good if not better. So, Slashfood's Birthday Cake Photo Contest is a chance for you to show off your skills by taking the best photo you can of birthday cake. Chocolate or vanilla, cupcake or layer cake, frosted or cream-filled... the options are endless, but it would be best if you top if off with a candle for us.

Once you have taken your picture, you have to upload it to our Birthday Cake Contest Flickr group by midnight on Wednesday, August 23rd. We will judge the photos and announce the winners on Friday, August 25th. Be sure to add a description to your photo once you've listed it on our Flickr group stating your name, or the name you would like us to announce. We will contact the winners via Flickr

The prizes? The winner will receive a copy of The Cake Book, and the runner up will get Crazy About Cupcakes.

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