The weekend I made the rainbow cake for my girlfrond*, I also made a birthday cake for my friend P, who requested some Mario pixel art.

The cake is a modified version of Maida Hatter’s “White Pepper and Ginger Lemon Cake” that I made as a layer cake instead of a bundt, and baked the batter in 2 8-in round pans for about 30-40 minutes.

For the frosting, I made 1.5 batches of Heather Baird’s “Citrus Buttercream” (SprinkleBakes, p. 81) and had some leftovers. I could have frosted the cake more in the middle and sides, but my friends aren’t super into tons of frosting. I left the white parts undyed, dyed the green part with food coloring, and added a little finely ground coffee and cocoa powder to flavor and color it.

For the pattern, I modified this cross-stitch pattern from Ms. Premise-Conclusion:

It’s not quite symmetrical, but I made the grid lines (16 at the widest part in the middle and 9-10 at the narrowest part at the top) with a butter knife in the top frosting and then used a reuseable, washable decorating bag and a star-shaped tip to make the “pixels.”

You could make this with any layer cake, round cake or square cake you like. Our party guests loved the White Pepper and Ginger Lemon Cake–it’s very moist and the flavors just pop. The citrus buttercream was the perfect complement. If you haven’t checked out Baird’s and Heatter’s books yet, run to the library or your nearest local bookstore pronto.

Happy birthday, P!

Note

*Why isn’t there a cute term for girlfriend like boif for boyfriend? Other than “live in gal pal” –but we don’t live together and I don’t want folks not in-the-know to miss out on that meme and think it’s platonic.