Half Birthday Cake Recipe – Chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. Perfect for celebrating a “half birthday”!
After our son Jake was born we started the tradition of celebrating his half birthday every year. When we reach the halfway point between one birthday and the next, we celebrate with half of a birthday cake.
Life can get busy and weeks and months fly by, so this seemed like the perfect way for our family to stop and reflect on one of the little moments of his childhood.
Jake loves chocolate, so I made him a chocolate cake with vanilla cream cheese frosting and decorated it with chocolate chips.
Making half a cake is very easy: Bake one 9 inch round cake. Once cooled, cut it in half, stacked the two halves on top of each other and frost it.
You should be able to make this with any cake recipe that yields two 9 inch cakes. Just cut the recipe in half to make one 9 inch cake.
I have found that one generous cup of frosting is enough to frost the entire cake, including in between the layers. Feel free to scale down your favorite frosting recipe or use the one I provided.
Prefer vanilla? Find that here: Funfetti Half Birthday Cake.
Recipe
Half Birthday Cake (Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting)
Ingredients
Cake:
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch of salt
- 1 egg
- ½ cup milk
- ¼ cup vegetable or canola oil
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½ cup boiling water
Frosting:
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 6 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Optional garnishes:
- chocolate chips. sprinkles, candy, ganache
Instructions
Make the cake:
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray one 9 inch round cake pan.
- Combine first 6 ingredients in a bowl. Once combined, beat in egg, milk, oil and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (the batter will be thin), and pour into cake pan.
- Bake for 25-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Prepare the frosting:
- Beat butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy. Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly combined and creamy. If necessary, you can add more powdered sugar to thicken it or a splash of milk to thin it.
- Cut the cake in half. Spread frosting on top of one half then place the other layer on top. Frost the cake with a butter knife or offset spatula. Be extra gentle frosting the area that was cut as it can be a bit crumbly. If desired, you can spread a really thin layer of frosting on the cake then refrigerate it for one hour before adding he remaining frosting. This "crumb coat" will help hold in the crumbs so that the outside layer of frosting doesn't have crumbs in it.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional Information is an estimate based on third-party calculations and may vary based on products used and serving sizes.
Tried this recipe?Leave a comment and rating below!
teri tatu says
That looks delicious! It looks like Jake is enjoying his half birthday celebration. He is lucky to have such a thoughtful Mom that creates fabulous family traditions.
Janis says
That is such a fun idea!
Anne says
I made this cake tonight as per the recipe, for my daughter’s half-birthday photo shoot tomorrow. The cake did not turn out. It was so dry and crumbly that it fell out of the pan, in chunks. I attempted to piece it back together but the dryness and frosting were no match. It sits in my garbage can and I have no cake for the photos. I’m definitely more torn up about this than I need to be, but I wanted things to be perfect for my daughter. I do not live in the mountains so I’m unsure what caused the horrible mess, I followed instructions.
Celebrating Sweets says
Hi, Anne. I have made this cake multiple times with no trouble. It is exactly half of the recipe of Hershey’s (super popular) chocolate cake. Something must have been missing, this cake always comes out super moist. I’m sorry to hear that it didn’t work out for you. I hope you were able to come up with something else for the photo shoot.
Jamaica Dela Cruz says
Hi,
I’m a newbie in baking. I was just trying to find a new hobby. So as of now I don’t have a complete set of baking tools. Currently the only pan I have is 8″. Can I use this recipe or should I cut it in half? Thanks.
Celebrating Sweets says
You can use an 8-inch pan, just don’t add all the batter. Fill the pan about halfway and discard the remaining batter. You might need to adjust the bake time a bit, just bake it until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Enjoy!
Mari says
So cleaver! Of course just fold it in half! I kept thinking it would be way more complicated! Thank you.
Celebrating Sweets says
You’re welcome. Enjoy!
Hannah M Judd says
I’m picky about my chocolate cakes and I thought this was fantastic! It was incredibly quick and easy–perfect for a half birthday. My son wanted chocolate frosting so I subbed out 1/2 c powdered sugar for 1/2 c cocoa powder and it turned out fantastic (I also added about 2 tsp heavy cream because it was a bit too thick at first, but that could have been user error/climate differences). Great cake, absolutely will be a go-to.
Allison Mattina says
Thanks for the kind review, Hannah! 🙂