Have you ever considered baking your own birthday cakes? Now, before you run away screaming, stay with me a moment.

I am not one of those mummys that has a house full of eco friendly toys, turns up to school fetes with perfectly decorated cupcakes, or knits her own yoghurt.

My baking is pretty rubbish really. But I do it anyway mostly because I like it. Baking is dead easy. You follow the instructions (and if you don't have anything to measure in, like me, then a cup is a tea cup, and a tablespoon is about two and a half dessert spoons), pop it in the oven, and in about 15 minutes (for a dozen cupcakes or cookies) you have the house smelling luscious and everyone talking about how fabulous you are.

In short, I'm lazy. I want maximum returns for minimum effort. I want to bask in adulation and admiration, and have people gasp at my domestic prowess. Naturally this does not involve bringing them around to my house. All illusions would be well and truly shattered.

When it comes to a home made birthday cake, you want something that looks fabulous but really can be done by anyone who has zero artistic ability. And doesn't really know how to bake. So here's the top five, easy, birthday cake ideas that I managed to find.

1 Smashable Cake

The top spot belongs, without a doubt, to PlayPennies reader Nicki, mum to three aged 6 and under. This is the birthday 'cake' for her son's third birthday. It is a smashable cake. The chest is a chocolate shell. With the help of a hammer, the child can smash it open, to reveal treasure (lots of gold wrapped chocolate coins).

Nicki says "I used a plastic tupperware container, brushed it with vegetable oil and put it in the freezer for an hour. Then melted chocolate melts in a double boiler and using a pastry brush created a mold. I put the chocolate back in the freezer to set." She used icing pens to decorate the chest. The sand is soft brown sugar.

Her son had a great time, armed with dad's hammer, reducing the cake to pieces.

I really don't think it can get much easier than that to create a cake that will impress children and adults alike.

2 Snake Cake

One reason I'm put off making a birthday cake is that in the week before a birthday party there's just so much to do. I work from home, but still I work full time. So fitting it in is pretty tough. I love the idea of this cake, which I found on an American parenting site (recipe HERE) for several reasons.

First, my son loves snakes. Second, there's no cutting up involved. It's all cupcakes so you can just hand them out. Third, cupcakes are dead easy to make and, crucial this point, you can freeze them. So you can make the cupcakes weeks beforehand. Just don't forget to give them time to thaw thoroughly!

The recipe uses a cracker to make the snake's snout, but I would be inclined to use a very thin square of chocolate. I think that fruit leather is the same as a fruit strip. Alternatively, see the last entry for using Fruitellas or Starbursts instead.

3 Castle Cake

There are lots of ideas for this online, and they all use pretty much the same sorts of things. Especially the ice cream cones for the turrets. Some use the pointy ones, and others the flat bottom ones, and yet others a mix of both. You could use a shop brought Victoria sponge too for the cake.

It works for boys and girls - just change the colours you are using to the child's favourite. Here's a video for one cake HERE. And while I didn't like this cake overall, I did like the idea this cake maker had HERE for making the turrets using sheets of icing.

4 Cake Pops

Be the trendiest mum at the school fete. Wow your child's friends at their next birthday party. The coolest thing to hand out at the moment are cake pops.

Cakes on a stick! I first saw these advertised in a magazine by a bakery that specialised in children's parties. Just one month ago. I was impressed and thought you had to go to a bakers to get something like that.

But no. I have found this recipe HERE and honestly, it sounds so simple. I'm also going to do a test freeze on these. If they do freeze, I'll be able to stockpile them in advance. And if that happens, then this recipe falls in the category of total genius!

5 Easy with icing

Baking the cake is, for me, the easy bit. It is the icing that takes the time. I love both of these ideas here! How cool does the stripy one look? And all it uses are normal and mini sized M&Ms. The other cake has been iced by softening candy fruit chews (maybe something like Fruitellas or Starbursts?) and rolling them flat. Simple or what?

To make the wet sort of icing you'll need for the M&Ms idea, put a cup, or two cups, of icing sugar into a bowl. Scoop out a teaspoon of butter and then rub that into the icing sugar. Add a little cold water one table spoon at a time, mixing it up, until it is the thickness you want.

Here's something for the next cake sale at school. Do two sponge cakes in square tins (use something like Sainsbury's Basics sponge mix). Do a filling of mock cream and jam. Then ice it over and cover in softened fruitellas or M&Ms. Genius!

I've edited this post to add a picture of my own 'smarties' cake. I took the M&Ms idea and did it with smarties for my son's school's summer fair. It certainly made an impact and I got lots of comments about how fab it looked.

There's lots of reasons to make the birthday cake yourself. For one thing, you know what's in there. And you can make it to the size you need. If you want a cake that's different to the kind you find in supermarkets, and you don't want to pay through the nose for a cake from a bakery, then making it yourself is the only way to go.

It's also a good option if you're on a really tight budget. There doesn't need to be anything fancy about a cake really. The birthday boy or girl just wants the joy of being the one to blow out the candles, and the children at the party just want a slice of cake they to eat. So if you like baking, why not do it yourself?

Here's some great ideas to help you along the way. And please do let us know what you do yourself. What great cake ideas have you come  up with in your parenting experience?

Coolest cake ideas

For ideas you can't do much better than this website run by two sisters, Coolest Birthday Cakes. The site has a fabulous tagline, describing itself as "thousands of homemade birthday cakes even amateurs can make."

The premise is a simple one. People submit photos of the cakes they've made, and the two sisters vet the submissions. The photos that are accepted are put up on the site. Along with the photo, there's also a description of the cake and its creation from the person who made it. To help you if you want to recreate any of the cakes you see here.

Annabel Karmel ideas

Did you buy into Annabel Karmel's cookery books for tots too? I did. I have to say that for a certain type of parent, ie me, who needs to know how to make mashed potato her cookery books an absolute lifesaver.

Personally, I think most of the recipes she has in there are absolutely revolting for adults let alone trying to get toddlers to eat them. But that said, there are a couple of recipes of hers that are now firm favourites in our house. And I've wowed many a person who's stopped by for dinner with the butternut squash risotto (mmmm buttery!).

These two Annabel Karmel birthday cake recipes are available online thanks to the archives of The Sun newspaper, of all places.

The first one is the No Bake Cake, pictured above. A cake you don't have to bake sounds like a favourite to me although this one looks like it might take a bit of time to put together! The other cake, the Princess and the Pea Cake, is a beautiful looking yet devilishly simple creation. I think even I could have a go at that.

Nigella Lawson's easy option

That famous domestic goddess and cook, Nigella Lawson, also has a super easy cake for hassled mums and dads to make. Nigella Lawson's easy birthday buttermilk cake is featured on The Guardian's website. Where, and this is the bit I really like, journalist Justine Pattison has a short video clip showing you how to make it.

It is part of the websites Cooking with Kids section. Making this cake could be a fun project to do with the kids. Perhaps a great idea for getting them to make the birthday cake for mum or dad.

Angry Birds cake

How's that for a simple but cool idea? If you haven't heard of Angry Birds then you need to have a chat with your offspring. My five year old doesn't have any sort of games console in the house, yet he talks about them all the time and draws pictures of them. These strange little creatures are the product of game called, as you might have guessed, Angry Birds.

If like me though you're not exactly artistic and have never attempted to do anything at all with icing except scrape it on a cake with a knife, then something like this might go horribly wrong.

If that happens don't let it get you down. It even happens to the professionals. So much so there is in fact a website dedicated solely to their mistakes. Cake Wrecks for "when professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong".

Number Five

Or indeed number 6 or number 8. You could adapt this idea from the blog of Elsie van Rooyen to a variety of different numbers. It is fiendishly simple though. She took a ring cake and a couple of loaf cakes, and fashioned them into the shape of the number. |She's then used icing and shapes like liquorice straps to create a road and car theme. A very sweet cake and perfect for a five year old's birthday.

And now for something completely different!

On my travels around the internet I found this idea for a cake, which is totally off the wall. And yet I find myself thinking, I want one of these! Possible this is better as a Halloween cake than a birthday cake, and definitely not one for the kids unless they're teenagers. In which case, the boys will probably find this the height of cool.

It is, wait for it, the Killer Rats Cake. And I'm not putting the picture up here. You'll have to go to the website for a look. Go on, you know you can't resist...