Bored Of Birthday Cake? Try One Of These Tasty Alternatives

If you don't have a sweet tooth, or if cake isn't your favorite sugary treat, being forced to follow tradition and celebrate your birthday with a candle-topped layer-cake ever year can seem pretty tiresome. We've been celebrating birthdays with cake for centuries, so we think it's high time we branched out and swapped the cake for some nonconformist edible birthday alternatives

Transform that birthday cake into liquid format! Coat your milkshake glass in sprinkles, and whizz up vanilla ice cream and cake mix to have the essence of your traditional birthday cake in shake form. Decorate with a bright straw instead of a candle, and enjoy your new take on a classic birthday cake.

For the Vanilla Sprinkle Birthday Cake Milkshake recipe, click here.

If bagels are your all-time favorite food, then every birthday should begin with one. Filled with a classic lox cream cheese, or something more alternative if that's what you're craving, and served with a candle in top, there's absolutely no reason why a birthday cake can't be swapped for a perfect bagel.

Stuff your burrito full of rice, slow-cooked meat, beans, extra guacamole, cheese, sour cream, and all the extra trimmings. An unrestrained burrito for you to devour all by yourself — none of that sharing business that birthday cake normally demands — has got to be the ultimate birthday treat for all the hungry Mexican food-lovers. Stick a candle in it if you really want to, but it isn't necessary.

While a perfectly squidgy chocolate chip cookie would be a fine swap for a slice of birthday cake, we're not sure it quite demands the attention and glory that you deserve on your birthday. Take that cookie up a notch and eat your way through a slice or three of a chocolate-doused cookie pizza.

For the Chocolate Chip Cookie Pizza recipe, click here.

The French often celebrate birthdays with an elegant crêpe cake, and we know that we can always trust the French when it comes to making dessert. Classic, thin crêpes are piled high, interspersed with a thick vanilla pastry cream. This elegant cake needs to take over from the boxed birthday cake mix immediately.

For the Crêpe Cake recipe, click here.

Birthday doughnuts are our new favorite thing. Why would we ever choose cake when we could have a beautifully glazed doughnut? And better yet, let's mark all our future birthdays with a tiered, towering doughnut cake. Covered with as many sprinkles as we like, in whatever fancy flavors we're craving, we can't think of a more delicious birthday treat.

Waking up on your birthday to the smell of cinnamon-dusted, buttery French toast emanating from the kitchen has got to be one of the happiest moments of the year. Served doused in maple syrup, with an extra dusting of cinnamon, and maybe even some crispy bacon, birthday breakfast for the sweet-toothed can't get any better than this.

If you're having a birthday party to celebrate your special day, there's no better way to do dessert than with an ice cream bar. Select your favorite flavors, douse them in chocolate fudge sauce, berries, candy, and extra chocolate, and light a candle on top. We like a birthday 'cake' where we can add as many fixings as we fancy.

If you're a pasta-lover at heart, a comforting dish of lasagna is probably what you dream of for your birthday meal, rather than a sweet, fluffy cake. With perfectly crispy edges, filled with rich ragù, béchamel sauce, and a hearty tomato sauce, a plate filled with a hefty serving of perfectly made lasagna really is what dreams are made of.

Cheese and pasta: our two favorite things. We would definitely be keen to celebrate our next birthday with our two most loved savory ingredients. Being served a baking tray filled with mac and cheese, bought to the table with lit candles on top, while your friends serenade you with an out-of-tune rendition of "Happy Birthday," has got to be one the best ways to celebrate turning one year older.

For the Baked Mac and Cheese Casserole recipe, click here.

Chocolate pancakes, sprinkle pancakes, regular pancakes, blueberry pancakes... Whatever your preferred flavor of pancakes is, make a double patch, pile them high, pretending they're a multi-layered cake, and stick a candle on top.

For the Easy Blueberry Pancakes recipe, click here.

Who says birthdays can't be celebrated with pie? Our favorite baked good gets so overlooked when it comes to important celebrations, and we really can't understand why. Packed with your preferred fruit, chocolate, or custard filling, and shared amongst your family and friends, this has got to be the next birthday cake trend.     

Swap a slice of birthday cake for a slice of pizza. This is definitely the closest you're going to get to a birthday cake in savory format. If you're looking to replicate the circular birthday cake, cut into even pieces, and topped with your favorite things (well, here it would be tomatoes and cheese rather than chocolate and frosting), then pizza should be your new birthday treat.

Everyone with a summer birthday should consider swapping colorful birthday cakes for colorful snow cones. Some bright, shaved ice, clutched in a paper cone is an incredibly refreshing, sufficiently sweet, birthday treat.

Celebrate your birthday Lesley Knope style: with a stack of waffles. You could even make your waffles have exactly the same taste as birthday cake by using your favorite cake mix in the batter. Lots of chocolate sauce and a huge scoop of ice cream on top are definitely necessary to turn waffles into a suitable birthday treat.

For the Birthday Cake Waffles recipe, click here.

Whether you're birthday is in the heat of summer and all you're craving is some refreshing fresh fruit, or if you really are a health-nut at heart who dreams of sweet fruit rather than sugary cake, this raw, entirely healthy fruit cake is the new birthday cake for you.

For the Watermelon and Peach Fruit Cake recipe, click here.