The birds are singing, the sun is blazing, the snow has melted, and the first of the Summer 2015 LEGO sets have begun to arrive in stores: there’s no doubt about it–summer has arrived! And with the arrival of first waves of summer sets comes one of the more-anticipated events of the summer: previously-unannounced, retailer exclusive sets showing up out of nowhere! Yesterday, five such sets appeared out of the blue–including a new addition to the popular range of LEGO Store exclusives: the LEGO Birthday Cake 40153!

Whereas once the exclusive little sets sold only at LEGO Store locations were considered by many to be throwaway ideas, LEGO has really hit their stride with the Store-exclusive and Seasonal sets over the past year, with some stellar sets released for Valentine’s Day, Easter and Christmas. But just because we’re in a major holiday drought for the next few months doesn’t mean the exclusive goodness has to stop, because there’s one holiday that can fall anywhere during the course of the year: builders’ birthdays!

While we’ve seen itty-bitty brick-built cakes over the years, there’s never been a large-scale brick-built birthday cake like this one! The cake is super-large so that the top can pop open and a minifigure can jump out as a surprise, and there are yellow bricks included that can be be built into any numbers from 1 to 99 (apparently, once you’re 100, you’re no longer expected to celebrate LEGO toys).

One minifigure is included with the 40153 LEGO Seasonal Birthday Cake set: a red and white Court Jester minifigure. (I’m not sure how things are in other countries, but in the United States, it’s typically not a clown popping out of a giant cake. But I digress.)

Sharp-eyed collectors with a good memory will know that this figure is not exclusive to this set–it’s actually a re-release of the exact same minifig that came in the LEGO Kingdoms Court Jester back in 2010. That said, it’s pretty unlikely that anyone still has any Kingdoms sets laying around on the shelves near them, so I imagine many people will be delighted to snag this Court Jester in a readily-available, cheap fashion with this adorable birthday cake set.

It’s unknown if the Jester minifigure will still have the same reversible head with crying face on the other side, but I’d assume that he will.

The Birthday Cake 40153 LEGO set will contain 120 pieces, which should enable it to be sold at the typical $9.99 price-tag when it arrives in the United States. At that price, this clever little set is going to fly off the shelves, just like most of the low-priced Store exclusives have in 2015!

Images of the 40153 Birthday Cake set are uploaded now on the US LEGO site, so that’s a pretty concrete confirmation that we’ll be receiving this Seasonal set here in the United States as well as overseas. Seeing as how this set is already available outside of the United States, I’d expect LEGO 40153 to be on-shelf in the United States either on June 1st 2015 or July 1st 2015 (although there have been instances where we’ve had to wait far longer for sets released elsewhere).

What do you think of the LEGO Birthday Cake 40153 set, brick fans? Will you be making this ingenious little build a part of your annual festivities, or does the idea of a jester popping out of a birthday cake made of plastic bricks just not tickle your fancy?