Birthday cakes got a little bit of a rework in Sims 4. Unlike previous games, you can no longer just buy them from the “Buy Menu” like in previous games. Now you need to bake it yourself at home. Which, thankfully, is not complicated to do and adds a bit more wholesomeness to your Sim’s birthday. Time to get baking and learn how to get a birthday cake in Sims 4.
How to Bake a Birthday Cake
The baking process of a Birthday is Quite simple. Start off by baking one of the regular cakes. There are six cakes that will fit to then become Birthday Cakes. How many of those you have unlocked depends mostly on your current cooking skill and a gourmet cooking skill if you are looking to make a gourmet cake.
Types of Cakes:
- Chocolate Cake
- White Cake
- Hamburger Cake (if you have the Digital Deluxe game)
- Blue Confetti Cake (Cooking Level 4)
- Strawberry Cake (Cooking Level 6)
- Honey Cake (from honey collected from beekeeping)
- Sim City Cheesecake (Gourmet cooking Level 5)
To start cooking got to the fridge and choose cook. Out of all the options pick a cake from the list we provided above. Chocolate and White cakes are available from the go, but if you want to increase your cooking skill and unlock others, just spend some time cooking different dishes in your free time.
Once the cake is ready you need to put it on a table or a kitchen counter. Click on the cake and choose “Add Birthday Candles”. The Sim will work the magic and $10 to add candles to the cake. Now the cake finally looks like a Birthday Cake. Put it on your favorite table or put it in your inventory by clicking on it and choosing “Put in Inventory” to pack it for a party.
How to Blow Out Candles
For the birthday cake to serve its purpose the Sim needs to blow out the candles on the cake. Click on the cake and choose “Make a Wish“, “Blow Out Candles” or “Taste a Frosting“. All those actions mean pretty much the same and will have your sim make a wish and blow out candles. If you have friends and family around they will even sing a song for you while you are making a wish and blow the party horns once you blow out the candles.
Toddlers can’t blow the candles themselves but will need to get someone to help. While controlling the toddler, click on the birthday cake and choose “Ask For Help to Blow Out Candles” and you’ll have the option to choose an older sim to assist. Or, you can use the older sim and click “Help Blow Out Candles” and choose the toddler who you wish to age up.
Once that’s done your Sim will age and move to the next life stage. There are a total of seven ages in Sims 4 and note that babies cannot age up using a birthday cake. Instead, click on the bassinet and click “Age Up”.
- Baby
- Toddler
- Child
- Teen
- Young Adult
- Adult
- Elder
About Birthdays, Parties, and Aging
There are no requirements for your Sim to make a cake, throw a birthday party, and as a result age up. You can wake up and decide that today is the day and get the party going. However, every Sim has a birthday on the calendar. On that day, your Sim will also age regardless of anything.
The key difference is that your birthday is inevitable and if you don’t treat it as such your Sim will get a “Forgotten Birthday” moodlet. To avoid that make sure to get a birthday cake, throw a party or at least invite a few friends over to your house to enjoy the day.
But whether you throw a party or not your Sim will age and advance to the next life stage regardless. The only way to disable that is by going to the Gameplay settings and disabling the Auto Age option. Or changing your Sim’s lifespan to “Long”.
Basically, by using a birthday cake outside of your birthday you speed up Sim’s aging process. But whether it is a calendar birthday or not, make sure to have fun with friends and family to make the day worth remembering. And snatch a piece of that birthday cake since now you know how to get one in Sims 4.
