Hello! Just popping in quick to say that despite the *eye-roll* social media drama going on, I managed to compile a prelim gallery of Lamb Cake contest contestants! (I am adding info/comments to the photos still, so this isn’t the finished gallery) I am posting a sneak peek here because I wasn’t able to grab all of the entries from my various inboxes before I went social media silent. So if you do not see your lamb cake on here, please let me know asap at ruthmidcenturymenu@gmail.com and send me another picture of your lambie/sheep/other treat. The deadline for the contest is 4/23, but considering all the difficulties this year, there isn’t going to be a hard cut-off date for trickle-in entries. Thank you so much, and I hope you all had a wonderful Easter!
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- Winkorama – Attached are a couple of photos of this year’s entry, made with your sour cream cake mix* recipe and Swiss buttercream frosting.*showing different mix flavors to my significant other, he picks strawberry: “So when you cut into it, you know…meat color.” 😛
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- Winkorama View 2
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- TIM Houle – Little Butter Pecan Lamb
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- Theresa Budnik Combs – Here’s my 2021 lamb cake! Thank you for hosting this contest. I have so much fun making (and eating) my lamb cake and love seeing other cakes!
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- Sewing Dervish – Tried something new this year…
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- Sarah Zaccardi – 2
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- Sarah Zaccardi – 3
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- Sarah Zaccardi – The recipe was a vintage pound cake recipe that came with the tin, so it’s been tried and true a few times before. The buttercream didn’t want to set and was melting off the lamb, but a layer of coconut fixed that right up. And of course, the lamb has some cookie friends.
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- Sarah Johnson – Here is my lamb cake entry for 2021. Had fun with neon food coloring but used the traditional Renalde recipe my great grandma used and your recommended birthday cake frosting. Really enjoy your website and recipe reviews! I love making older recipes in my free time and am glad to carry on the lamb cake tradition in my family!
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- Sarah Bieber – Nelly Lamb, made with hand-rolled marshmallow fondant swirls!
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- Sarah Bieber – 2
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- Sandie Rabena – Happy Easter! We used your Nun’s Golden Butter Cake Recipe
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- Sabine Trapp Lambie – This year, I have utilized a new lamb cake mould and a vintage easter rabbit mould from the 1970s. The dough was a very rich pound cake with lemon zest, because Easter Sunday was also my husband’s birthday
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- Sabine Trapp Bunny – This is my second Easter cake. It was a very rich pound cake with lemon zest baked in a 1970s Easter rabbit mould.
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- Decorated by Regan Oliver!
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- Regan Oliver – Candice the Promiscuous Lamb (with Butterflies) Renalde cake recipe with Vintage Birthday Cake Frosting
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- From Sewing Sirena aka Rebecca Bowman
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- Rebecca Bezdecny – I’m a bit bummed it came out so normal looking this year. 😆
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- Rachel Hewitt
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- Nicole Jakubowski
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- Natalie Curtiss – He’s not cake, but this lamb has been lovingly crafted from herbed cream cheese dip.
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- Moxie Carroll (Dawn) – Well, here he is – my official first-ever lamb cake, humbly submitted for judging/random choosing. I’m so glad I decided to try and make one this year – it was fun, even if hand-placing individual white chocolate chips took WAY longer than any human would have thought possible. It’s my new go-to zen practice now. 😉 Thanks for running such a fun site and for letting me be a tiny part of it. Hope you had a wonderful Easter!
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- Hannah Corbin
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- Melissa Corbin
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- Meg Martines – As usual, your tips are essential for success – that and my stylin’ apron. Everyone loved the cake — you really make the holiday fun and tasty. (ps, I also bought a t-shirt…I’m looking forward to wearing that once the weather warms a bit here in Cleveland). Have a great day – I’m excited to see this year’s gallery of pics.
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- Meg Martines – View 2
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- Congo Conga Cam – View 2
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- Congo Conga Cam
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- Margaret Stolarczuk – My Grandmother’s old recipe. I use butter and skip the food coloring!! Thank you for the fun site!
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- Margaret Stolarczuk – View 3
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- Lisa W – My lamb cake was a success this year! Last year was such a disappointment I couldn’t bear to send a pic to you. But behold, redemption! Coconut pound cake with lavender tinted sweetened condensed milk buttercream, and edible glitter.
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- Lisa W – View 2
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- Lisa W – View 3
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- Lisa Parkhill – This is my first lamb cake, made of lemon pound cake with vanilla marshmallow piped on frosting, covered in coconut with classic jellybean features. I’m a girl on the go so it is not all homemade but made with love and your tips were extremely helpful! I hesitated at first to send Lambie in for your contest because the picture wasn’t staged but it was so cute and I was proud, I just couldn’t resist.
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- Lisa NF
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- Lisa Guppy
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- Linda Larger – My third year of baking a lamb cake for Easter. Thanks to your helpful tutorial I am getting more use out of my mom’s lamb cake pan than she ever did. I think this is my best one yet!
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- Linda Larger
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- Lena Dansdill – Bride Lamby!
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- Lena Dansdill – Bride and Groom!
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- Made by Tiara Berkel and Kim Birkett using the Renalde cake recipe and a cream cheese buttercream frosting. His name is Lemmy the Lamb, and he was delicious 😋
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- Kimberly Birkett & Tiara Berkel
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- Kimberly Birkett & Tiara Berkel
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- Kelly Dobies – I call her glamma-lamba-tiki queen. This is my first time entering this contest and I am super excited.
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- Karen Parr-Moody and Cynthia – My friend Cynthia and I entered for the second year in a row. We have established that it is a tradition. Thanks for fostering that! We love your website!
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- Julie – Christmas reindeer
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- Julie Lamb 2
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- Julie – Thank you for continuing the annual contest. Love all the great instructions and information on making the Lamb cakes. Due to Covid I did not make a cake last year for Easter but did make a reindeer for Christmas (photo attached) and made two lambs for Easter.
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- Julia Cort – This is was our fifth Easter without our Mom Helen and the fifth of my carrying on her tradition of a Lamb Cake for Easter – all because of you and your fabulous blog and tutorial! Although our Mom always made a more traditional (and to be totally honest, usually dry) pound cake for her Lamb, I’ve stuck with a carrot cake recipe I found online in 2017 which is working well, and I actually think this year’s is my best bake so far. It has never quite risen through the back of the head, but everything else is perfect – it’s moist, tasty, and holds its shape well. (Thank you baked-in skewers & toothpicks!) I’m including a pic of the bare cooling lamb – with all the great details on display from my Mom’s Griswold mold – before I slathered it with lemon cream cheese frosting and coconut flakes. The 2021 carrot lamb cake is celebrating spring with flowers and radiating hope for the future. It’s also super healthy, because I used a red bell pepper for the nose and smile.
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- Julia Cort II
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- jerseysharon825 – My first ever lamb cake
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- Jennifer Oliver
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- Jennifer Oliver – Eugene the Lamb with Butterflies Renalde recipe with Vintage Birthday Cake Frosting
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- Jena Hupman – Martian Lamb, Inspired by Uncle Martin from My Favorite Martian, especially the hair. Orange cake with orange frosting.
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- Jena Hupman Lamb Cake – Coconut frosting over Renalde vanilla cake lamb – always delicious
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- Jena Hupman Bunny – Easter at Stonehenge – Chocolate ganache over vanilla cake bunny
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- Jeanie Tweedy – Here is my submission. It’s a chocolate cake with buttercream icing, a ganache covered face and dark chocolate mini eggs. I named her Fancy.
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- Jean Ferguson & Daughter Makenna – Lambs & Wings (and love) My daughter and I have been making lamb cakes together since 2009…it’s tradition and tribute. She’s second year college now 😊 We are also in the midst of moving in 3 weeks but we had to make our cake. This year we tried “sugar painting” and had fun goofing around making wings and crown and face (easy to throw back in the pot and start over). Thank you as always Ruth for bringing sunshine in.
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- Jean Chen – Hi! Here is my entry for the lamb cake! Also, I just wrote about it for The Kitchn: [https://www.thekitchn.com/easter-lamb-cake-23136185](https://www.thekitchn.com/easter-lamb-cake-23136185)
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- Jane Wiewora
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- Jane Boyko – I used the chocolate pound cake recipe you provided. This was my first ever cake. I’ve always wanted to make one since I first started reading your blog in 2013.
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- Jane Boyko II
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- Hope Roth – My daughter asked for strawberry and my mom is gluten free. So, I made a GF strawberry pound cake. 😊
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- Heather & Patrick Wall – My husband, Patrick, makes a lamb cake every year (like his grandmother). He’s tried a number of recipes for the cake but the icing is always the same, a real buttercream. Over the years we’ve found coffee beans to be the best eyes and nose. This year he had the proper attire for decorating! We greatly enjoy your blog!
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- Fran Lutz – Thank you for your inspiration, for with your hints, I was successful with Miss Lamb. I used the Pope Family Lamb cake recipe with coconut cream cheese frosting. I toasted the coconut. I think she looks more at home in the fridge! Thanks again-I can check this off my bucket list.
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- Fran Lutz II
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- Elizabeth – My sister made me do it! She made the cake and I (embarrassed to admit) decorated it.
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- Dorothy Morris
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- Denise Hodgson – Here is my cake for the 10th annual lamb cake contest. His name is Lambert after the Disney short “Lambert the Sheepish Lion”
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- Cynthia Schwendeman – We received the vintage lamb mold from my grandpa a few years ago. (With original recipe inside) With your tips this year finally turned out without decapitation. And your reviewed recipes were much better than the recipe provided. This was our best year ever! Thank you again for your dedication to lamb cakes. My mom loves it and this year we baked and decorated together.
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- Max From Congo Conga Cam
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- Christine Cagwin – Presenting my first ever submission to the Lamb Cake Contest. Meet Lola!
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- Christine Cagwin II
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- Christine Baron – Thanks for always hosting such lamb-filled fun!!
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- Cheryl Wright – A star wars easter baby yoda!
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- Cherie Savoie Tintary – Here is Vegan Lavendar Lamb! I got a new pan (vintage 1976) so I finally got my lamb to sit up!
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- Cherie Savoie Tintary II
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- Cherie Savoie Tintary – 3
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- Celia Samaniego – I had never heard of these cakes growing up but I fell in love with them after seeing your website. A few years back, I bought my own vintage lamb mold and was thrilled. I even purchased one of your adorable lamb aprons to wear while making lambs this year. Now it’s a new family tradition and it makes for great laughs and fun! I am submitting two lambs: This lamb is made by me and it’s from a box cake mix. The icing is homemade vanilla buttercream.
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- Celia Samaniego daughter Alice – This hot pink lamb cake was made by my 6 year old daughter, Alice. She mixed her own box mix, greased up the mold, and decorated it mostly herself. She begged me to submit a picture because she was so proud of it. This was so much fun! My daughter was telling everyone that I was entering a competition lol. We can’t wait to see all the other submissions and feast our eyes on some awesome lambs!
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- cdarbygragg – I call it my Frida Kahlo Lamb Cake, because there has been so much interest in Frida Kahlo , the artist, this year. She always wore flowers in her hair. I made it with an old family recipe for pound cake, and vanilla butter cream frosting.
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- Cathy Gault – Here is my submission for the 2021 lamb cake contest. I’m so excited that I finally managed to get it in in time! Yay!
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- Carol K – Hi this was my daughter Lauren’s first attempt at a Lambie cake and I think she did a great job! It was a tasty carrot cake with buttery cream cheese frosting and tasted as good as it looked. I have passed the Lambie Cake baton onto her!
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- Cammie Vallepalli – This cake was decorated by a teenage girl making her very first Lamby Cake! I sent her the raw elements and she came up with this!
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- Cammie Vallepalli – Another amazing cake from a young lady from Bangalore India who has never seen a Lamby cake before!
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- Cammie Vallepalli
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- Cammie Vallepalli – After seeing what these young girls did I had another go at it! This is my second attempt! It has been so much fun introducing Lamby cake to my whole neighborhood this year… people had never heard of the tradition even though out of my neighbors have lived in the US for some time.
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- Cali – View 2
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- Cali – This is my submission for the 10th annual lamb cake contest! I commented on your blog in March and had asked about flavoring the Renalde Lamb Cake recipe with lime or coconut. But after some consideration I went for lemon. It couldn’t have turned out better! Especially for my first try! This recipe was incredible! So I adjusted the recipe to 3/4 cup milk with 1/4 cup lemon juice and the zest of 3 lemons. It was the perfect balance of lemon flavor! The cake released perfectly. I followed your 10 tips to the perfect lamb cake as well which I believe were crucial to making this cake super easy and perfectly constructed. The simplicity of the recipe had wonderful flavor! I also frosted it with a lemon buttercream made of 2 sticks softened unsalted butter, 4 cups powdered sugar, 2 tbsp milk, and 2-4 tbsp lemon juice. Then covered in coconut and added 2 chocolate chip eyes and a jelly bean nose! This was super similar to what my great-grandmother’s recipe was and I hope to bring back the tradition of the lamb cake for my family. Wish I had thought of more decorations to really make it look cute. But this recipe is hands down the best! Thank you for your posts Ruth! They helped me in my quest to bring back the lamb cake tradition. Now I introduce to you…. Lemon the Lamb
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- Cali – View 3
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- Caitlin Smith – Here’s my little lambie from this year! This was the most delicious of the lambs I’ve made. It was Nun’s Golden Butter Cake from your website, frosted with the cream cheese frosting from this NY Times recipe for Guinness chocolate cake, plus coconut on top. As a bonus, both the cake and frosting were very easy–I would recommend them for first-time lamb bakers. The frosting recipe makes an awkward amount, not quite enough for a lamb; I doubled the recipe and had some left over
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- Barbara Lawrence – Eeep! My first ever lamb cake! Almost something of a fail because the mold is so much smaller than the original recipe, I needed to take the cake out of the oven way sooner than I did. It’s still okay though. I had read that pound cakes worked best in the mold, so it was the perfect opportunity to make my favorite Blueberry Raspberry Pound cake recipe by Molly Wizenberg from the blog Orangette. The recipe appears in her book, A Homemade Life. The coat is cream cheese frosting, swirled. Raspberry ears and nose, mini halved blueberry eyes. I dyed eggs with the rice technique, and made coconut grass for a more traditional and festive presentation.
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- Barbara Lawrence – Pound Cake Lamb
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- Barbara Lawrence – Pound Cake Lamb
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- Barbara Lawrence Corn Bread – Scratch cornbread frosted in honey butter with pepperjack coat. Pimento ears and nose, olive and pea eyes
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- Barbara Lawrence Corn Bread
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- Barbara Lawrence Chile Lamb – Whelp, not every effort is a success 😢. Chile relleno lamb didn’t unmold
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- Barbara Lawrence Chile Lamb
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- Barbara Lawrence Banana Cake
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- Barbara Lawrence Banana Cake – Of course I’m not done with lambs 😊. Banana Cake with a whipped cream/cream cheese frosting. Recipe by I Am Baker. Eight bananas! https://iambaker.net/banana-cake-recipe/
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- Barbara Lawrence Lamb Cake
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- Barbara Lawrence Lamb Cake
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- Anne Marie Mikołajczyk – Happy Easter Ruth!! 🐑
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- Andrew Birling – I love your blog, and finally decided to enter the Lamb Cake Contest! Here’s my pastel rainbow chocolate lamb. Thanks for being a bright spot in my week, especially during this past year of pandemic!
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- Andrew Birling – View 2
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- Anastacia – Here is my lamb cake submission for this year. Thanks so much for inspiring us to do this every year. It’s so much fun! Happy Easter!
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- Name: Lambie (cuz she’s a lamb…says my four year old) Cake: Gluten Free Chocolate pound cake, recipe by Gluten Free on a Shoestring Frosting: vanilla buttercream Baker: Allison Martinson (with help from Eleanor)
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- Alex Nicholai – Here is my entry for your lamb cake contest. It’s a yellow cake with raspberry jam & vanilla frosting. Making it was a lot of fun! I don’t have any special pans, so I did carve the face out of pieces of cake that I stacked together & held in place with some skewers. Thank you for holding such a fun competition!
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- Alex Nicholai – View with his flock!
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- Adrienne Jones – I’m attaching a photo of our plain Jane lamb cake. Her posture is incredible and she is delicious if the cupcakes are any indicator (and how could they not be?). Really this is an excuse to send you a thank you note. Last year, in early days of the pandemic with three kids at home and one of them with higher medical risk, we were bummed out. Years before I’d picked up a lamb pan during a yard sale’s bag sale. I’d wanted to make one since I was a kid, and the pan called out to me. It sat for years in a storage closet. There was never the time or interest. So my kid who was missing a world robotics competition (Go Lazer Duckies!) and I found your site and made the Renalde cake. It was fun. And when the head and ears didn’t fall off, we considered ourselves champions. My youthful fellow-baker doesn’t like frosting or icing, so the most decoration we could agree on was powdered sugar. This was a fun adventure last year. This year it was a happy new tradition. Thank you for your site full of great recipes and tips. It was really cool to fulfill a weird childhood dream with one of my own kids. We literally could not have done it without you.
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- Christin P Lamb Cake – Attached are my submissions for the lamb cake contest. While I have been a reader of your blog for many years, this is my first year entering, and my first year making a lamb cake! Thanks to your recipes and excellent tips, my first attempt was a success! I had to experiment a little with the pan after my Easter lamb cake, so I have three pictures for this year: Lamb Cake, Banana Bread Lamb, and Jell-O Lamb (covered in Cool-Whip, of course!)
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- Christin P Jello Lamb
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- Christin P Banana Bread
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- Shana O’Shea – 3
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- Shana O’Shea – It was so fun participating and I can’t wait to see everyone’s submissions! Thank you so much!
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- Shana O’Shea – 4
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- Shana O’Shea – 2
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- Trisha da Cunha – Cut Section
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- Trisha da Cunha – I am sending you my photos of my Easter lamb cake. I have been following your blog for years and bought a lamb cake pan because of your cakes that I admire every year! I made a pink cake, that is why I put a second photo of it cut open, lol. I am looking forward to seeing all of the submissions this year!
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- Cas LeBlanc – Lambrosia
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- Martha Stevens – This is my hand-shaped lamb meatloaf with mashed potatoes fleece and olive and whole clove eyes and nose. The spring garden is made of steamed broccoli florets and zucchini cups filled with asparagus tips. Lamb Meatloaf 1.75 – 2 lbs. ground beef 1/2 C. breadcrumbs (I used panko-style gluten-free breadcrumbs) 1/3 C. Milk or more as needed to soak breadcrumbs 1 tsp. Salt 1/4 Tsp. Pepper 1 Large Egg, lightly beaten 2.5 ounces of breakfast or uncooked, loose sausage 1 T. Worcestershire Sauce 1 tsp. Tomato Paste For Decorating the Lamb Meatloaf 2 pounds of prepared mashed potatoes 2 or 3 Kalamata Olives and whole cloves for the eyes and nose. Assorted spring vegetables, lightly steamed Soak breadcrumbs in milk. Add the egg and other ingredients and blend well with a fork, then with your hands. If needed, before shaping the meatloaf, chill in the refrigerator to firm up the mixture. Use a greased baking dish or line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment baking paper. The dish should be able to hold the hot juices, but allow some air space around the meat so that it browns evenly. Form your lamb. If needed, you can brace the head with crumpled parchment paper. Bake at 325 F. until cooked through and browned, about 1.25 hours. When ready to serve, top with mashed potatoes and if desired, lightly brown the mashed potatoes under a broiler at 375 F. for a few minutes or use a hand-held torch. Remove from the oven. Allow to rest for about fifteen to twenty minutes before adding the eyes and nose and transfering to a serving platter. Surround with steamed vegetables.
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- Barbara Lawrence Spaghetti Lamb – 3
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- Barbara Lawrence Spaghetti Lamb
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- Barbara Lawrence Spaghetti Lamb – 2
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- Sarah Sloan – Lamb Baked Alaska
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- Lisa Boyce – Here is my lamb that just wants to go gnome 😂
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- Beth Harris – This was my first one ever. Used a recipe that wasn’t enough, so he had no formed backside because the cake didn’t go beyond the front half of the pan. I was discouraged at that point, although it came out of the pan wonderfully using your tips, so I decided not to frost him, but simply dusted with powdered sugar. The eyes are royal icing discs leftover from one of my cookie decorating orders, with the pupils done with a food color marker. And since I always seem to have royal icing made up, I popped some in a sandwich bag and haphazardly piped the mouth and nose, and added a sparkle to the eyes
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- Ardith Johnston
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- Hannah Corbin
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- Janet Spink – This is my first year trying, and I’m very happy with the result!
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- Mallory Van Fossen – View 2
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- ssssss sss
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- Patrick Forbes
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- Nicole Loqui
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- Mallory Van Fossen – I wanted to submit this photo of my lamb cake for the lamb cake contest. The pan I use has been in my family for decades. We refer to it as a family legend. It survived an attempted heist, went missing for years, and resurfaced mysteriously in my mother’s possession recently… There are still some family members that don’t know I now have it (shhhh…!) It wouldn’t be Easter without this little guy. There are 2 collage photos that show each step, and one of the finished product.
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- Mallory Van Fossen – View 3
