Growing up, we always had birthday cakes from Spring Hill Bakery.

Not Duchess Bakery.

Not the grocery store.

And absolutely NOT Walmart or Sam's Club.  EVER.

No, in our family, the tradition was a birthday cake from Spring Hill Bakery.  No one ever asked your filling preference or cake flavor. Your cake was made of white cake (with its subtle almond flavor) and white icing, and there were always big, fluffy icing roses involved, which inspired near riots.

As I grew older, I wanted to play with wild, fancy departures.  Fruit fillings.  Different decorations.  But if I did, I don't remember them.  I just remember those lovely rose cakes, always decorated in our preference of color (that was the only input we were asked to offer.)

These days, I'm a gourmand.  Hoity toity with my cutting-edge cake preferences.  Yawning at white cake and buttercream, scowling when people tell me that the local grocery store makes the best. cakes. ever.

But let a birthday come around, and there is no cake I'd rather have. My poor husband tries to dazzle me with Sachertortes, and beautiful Greek honey cakes (he's a pastry chef, and has the degree to prove it, unlike me — I'm just a dabbler.) Even these cannot compare to my Spring Hill Bakery birthday cake.

If a cake can anchor you to the past — all of those family get togethers — this one has.

Thanks, Mom and Aunt Jada, for making it happen.

And if you're getting married anywhere in the lower half of West Virginia, I strongly suggest you give my friends at Spring Hill Bakery a call.

Not in West Virginia?  I bet you have a beloved bakery in your town.  There it is!  Right past that big box store.

Go ahead.  Give them a try.

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Read More:  birthday cake, neighborhood bakery, spring hill bakery, traditional birthday cake