Last week I was virtually salivating over a birthday cake made with Pimm’s and Champagne poured into a mold to form a jiggly Buckingham Palace. Along the same lines a loyal reader sent me a link to CupofJo’s several unique non-cake birthday cake options.

I added some research of my own, and now share some of the more creative recipes I came across.

Crackle! Pop! Celebrate!

Food blogger Not Without Salt shared a recipe for a Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treat Cake with layers of peanut butter chocolate icing. It would make for a crunchy bite of cake, but kiddos would likely love this one.

Sprinkle Bakes, a baking and desserts blogger I regularly retweet for #yummybday made the even more attractive version Rice Krispie Treat Sprinkle Cake.

Fruity Festivities

Not Without Salt is also the source for this cake made entirely of fresh fruit. In summer this would be a perfect alternative if the guest of honor eats gluten-free. As a huge fan of watermelon, I’m all over this idea. Ironically, despite the blog title, there is no salt in this recipe!

Birthday for Breakfast.

What better way to start a birthday off than with a Cake Batter Pancake Cake? I am in firm agreement with How Sweet It Is food blogger Jessica’s view that “the world would be a better place if more sprinkles were involved.” Using sprinkles in the cake batter that she cooked up as pancakes, Jessica created a tasty treat that would likely bake much faster too! Still, it could use more frosting!

Brownie Birthday Binge

Not as creative as the first few options, this one still takes the cake (ha ha) for chocolate lovers. No wonder this brownie stacks up as the first playful, alternative cake displayed in Foodnetwork.ca’s slide show.

Ice Cream Birthday Dreams

This Have A Yummy Day ice cream wreath recipe involves making the ice cream from scratch. However, the idea alone would be easy enough to replicate with store bought. I’d want to try this one actually, with pieces of cake or brownie on the serving tray too. Oh, and definitely a chocolate sea salt caramel ice cream as the base.

Chip in for Cookie Layers

This last one would surely be my son’s favorite. He’s asked for cookie cake the last two birthdays, but this one might be in the running for next February. The Cake Blog’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake layers thin cookies with buttercream between the layers holding this tower of goodness together.

Any other suggestions you’d share for alternative birthday cakes? I’d love to read about it in the comments section.