My teen daughters favorite cake and also her birthday cake is the One Bowl Chocolate cake recipe from the BHG cookbook also on
http://www.bhg.com/recipe/chocolate-...hocolate-cake/
My partner when young his cake use to be a big 3 tier chocolate cake with chocolate homemade frosting from a recipe from womans day magazine but lost his taste for it at middle age.
A second cake we all three like is the hot milk sponge cake also from BHG.com just simple no topping.
For myself when I was younger I used to do different cakes for my birthday. But these days I do not bake much.
I also homebake my fruitcake for Christmas. Sometimes I save a bit for my January birthday.
In my youth at home was birthday cakes where baked from Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines mixes from an american grocery shop.