My birthday was this past Saturday, and I forgive all of you for not buying me a gift. I didn't even have any cake! Though the Mexican food and beer and wine I had more than made up for it.

Cake is something I don't eat much of, for both weight reasons and I'm not much of a baker and don't really think about buying one. But a good chocolate cake with a tall glass of cold milk is one of life's great pleasures, and AOL food has recipes for various birthday cakes (scroll down to "Great Cake Recipes") you can try. They go as far as to say that birthday cake has surpassed apple pie as America's greatest guilty pleasure.

I don't agree with that, but there are some good cakes here, including Chocolate Walnut Cake, Kentucky Butter Cake, Linzer Cake, Flourless Sponge Cake, and something called Kitty Litter Cake.

The Pumpkin Roll Cake is a back-of-the-box recipe, meaning that it is usually printed on the wrapper on cans of Libby's solid-pack canned pumpkin, so it is a recipe that just about everyone (in the US, anyway) seems to have come across at one time or another. Discounting the brands sold at natural foods stores, Libby's is the most common brand of pumpkin and the one you are most likely to see when at the grocery store, so it is not terribly surprising to find that when people are not making pie with their canned pumpkin, they are often making this cake, as did Nicole, from Pinch My Salt. The cake consists of a very thin pumpkin sponge caked that is rolled up and spread with a generous amount of cream cheese filling, giving it the ideal cake-to-frosting ratio for anyone who enjoys cream cheese frosting.

The recipe is after the jump.

Last week we looked at how to make some low fat oatmeal cookies that were just as good as their full-fat counterparts – not to mention that they are better for you. This week, instead of choosing a recipe that needed to have something replaced, as the applesauce stood in for some of the butter in the cookies, the recipe is a cake that already has a no-added-fat base. Basically, instead of relying on a richer butter cake base, this version of pineapple upside down cake uses a sponge cake as the base.

Petit fours are classic party treats. True, they are seen more often on a plate of pastries at an elegant hotel then they are at an at-home party, but that shouldn't be the case. They are easy to make. You can see that I left one of mine only half covered in chocolate so that it would be easier to see the components.

Start with a store-bought pound cake or sponge cake. Cut it into one-inch cubes and then cut those in half lengthwise. Spread a thin layer of jam in between the cake slices and stack them back up. Melt down some white chocolate and dip the cake square into it. Place the dipped petit fours onto a sheet of wax or parchment paper to dry, topping them with sprinkles or other small decorations while they are still sticky. This is a great activity for kids because the chocolate can be melted in the microwave and they definitely won't mind getting their fingers sticky in the chocolate!

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Behind all the other odds and ends, stacked up alongside some canned tomatoes, was this lone, canned Heinz Treacle Pudding. Generally known as cake and not pudding on the US side of the Atlantic, this traditional British dessert is a round of sponge cake that is saturated with a golden syrup known as treacle. Treacle is a type of light molasses that is left over during the sugar refining process. It makes what would otherwise be a plain and fairly dry dessert moist and sweet, so the combination of treacle and sponge is a time-honored British favorite. Come to think of it, the combination of treacle and nearly anything is a British favorite.

The label on the cake promised that it was microwaveable, meaning that I could avoid a 30 minute stove-top steaming just to eat it. I put it on a plate, covered it with a microwave-safe bowl and hit "start."

A restaurant in Tokyo has introduced the world's first fast food sweets. These aren't your usual deep fried apple pies and chocolate chip cookies, either. This restaurant offers sweets that are made to look like traditional fast food offerings, from hamburgers to french fries. At first glance, a Mamido's Burger hamburger looks quite ordinary, but the taste reveals something entirely different. The "bun" is made of sponge cake and the "patty" is actually a molded chocolate cream. Their version of a breaded fish burger features a patty made from bananas and what looks like a side order of french fries, pictured above, are deep fried slices of custard cream.

Young people and women are generally the target market for sweets and confections in Japan, but the shop is proving to be popular with men, as well. According to the owner, a man who might be embarrassed to be seen eating a slice of cake, can walk along looking as though he is enjoying a burger!

[Via Fast Food News]