''I've got no puff,'' she said as she tried to blow out the candles in Dunedin.
The work of Home of St Barnabas Trust kitchen supervisor Barbara Sanderson, the cupcakes were the centrepiece of the birthday celebrations.
Born Fredericka MacKinlay in 1907, Mrs McMillan, known as Freda, had kept in good health, driving until she was in her 90s.
She moved to St Barnabas after her 100th birthday.
While able to get about back then with help from a bright red mobility scooter, she now needed a wheelchair or walker.
''I miss getting out like that,'' she said at her birthday lunch yesterday.
Asked if she had family, she replied: ''My mother had 13 children; I'd had enough''.
However, she did help bring up her late husband Stan Lambert's two sons from a previous marriage.
She later married Lin McMillan, who had since died.
She was brought up in Kaitangata, where her family ran bakeries.
''The pies were very sought-after.''
She loved reading books, especially histories on her home town, and admitted she had a soft spot for Prime Minister John Key.
''I tell people he's my husband. I think he's lovely.''
