Robot Cake and a Birthday!

It is that time of year again at our house.

Birthday time!!

February is the first month of the year that has a birthday at our house. 

Little Dude is turning 9 and when the time came for him to look through my cake books and choose a cake he went for it and picked a robot cake!

This book is awesome!

There are so many ideas and shortcuts to awesome cakes.

The first thing I had to do was go out searching for all the candy needed for this guy.

I don't live in a huge town so I had to make some substitutes for the candy I couldn't find. For example BottleCaps for Razzles and Mini M&Ms for the Jujubees.

That OK. 

If I didn't tell... no one would know!

I followed the directions in the book except I made my cake instead of buying store bought pound cakes.

Crumb layer

We chose green instead of blue. (I am of the opinion that blue is not a food color. Just a pet peeve!)

Once it was frosted it was time for assembly.

Head, arms, ears, neck.

The all important lollypops added. 

Frosting dots. I didn't like the little points that the frosting tip left so how to fix that? 

TIP:

Dip your finger in some water, shake off the excess and gently press the peak down. The frosting won't stick to your finger and it will nicely round out.

Yeah, Yeah, he is legless! 

I did it on purpose, I swear.

There are 6 people in our family. This year we are not having company over for cake so I left the legs off because really... 

isn't this enough cake already?

I didn't want to be too wasteful! 

Look at the kid!

He doesn't care that his robot has no legs. 

He is happy as a kid can be!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIDDO!!

Construction Cake

A friend's little boy is turning 3.

She wanted a cool cake for him and asked me to come up with something to do with construction.

After spending way too much time on Pinterest.

(Thank heavens for Pinterest!!)

I found a cute idea.

 What could be better than trucks and dirt?

I started with a 10 inch pan and an 8 inch pan and lined them with parchment paper.

 

 

 

For the crumb layer I made up a quick buttercream. Since I was going to be cutting a chunk out of the cake to look like it had been excavated I knew it was going to be a crumbly mess. I frosted the whole thing and put it in the freezer for about 15 minutes before I cut the chunk out. I then put the buttercream on the cut part. That way it was still soft and the Oreo dirt stuck to it.

Decorating Time!

 

This is my favorite part. Since I couldn't find just one big digger truck I found a fun 5 pack. I wanted to cram them all on there because they were all cool trucks but alas... it wasn't big enough.

 



Construction cones.

In the picture I found on Pinterest she used fondant. I have a love hate relationship with fondant. (I would like to love it but right now I hate it.) So I used Starburst. I just warmed them, still wrapped, in my hand and then molded them into cones. The bottoms I got soft in the microwave for 10 seconds and rolled out with a rolling pin. Pizza cuttered them and they stuck together pretty well with me just warming the bottom of the cone with my finger and pressing them together.

Once all the dirt was added, the trucks  placed and the cone put up it looks pretty good. I also added candy rocks into the big pile of dirt on the top.

Giant

hole!

 

 

Vinny I hope you have a wonderful birthday and enjoy your cake!!

 



Sand Castle Birthday Cake

Birthday season has started at our house. 

They year starts out in February with Liam. 

He is turning 7 today.

After looking through my many cake and cupcake books he chose a sand castle cake out of Cakes for Kids.

Every so often I catch my little boys lying on the floor looking through the cake books on the shelf. 

They are so cute!

Another thing I like about the kids picking their birthday cakes is that I usually get to buy a new something for baking.

This time it was a 12 inch round cake pan, and an 8 inch square cake pan. 

 We have the best store here in Logan called Kitchen Kneads. 

I love that place. 

I thought this was going to be an easy one. Looks easy don't it! Not so my friends. 

I don't know what happened. I was in cake decorating mode, I had the little TV in the kitchen with a good show on, it was just harder than I had planned for it to be.  

The frosting is made with shortening to make it look like sand. Gotta make sure there is a crumble layer of butter cream. It doesn't like to stick to the cake. The doors, windows, and little balls are tootsie rolls melted a bit in the microwave and rolled out or up. The sand is brown sugar. The pebbles I found in the bulk section of the supermarket. Caramels and sugar cones finished it off.

My only catastrophe was that tall tower in the back. It is supposed to be 3 layers of cake. Well, when the tall, heavy cake sat on the bottom round cake it was too heavy. It started to fall over. Actually, it finally did fall over. 

Solution? Rice Krispy treats. I made an 8 inch pan of rice krispy treats and cut them into the right size squares, frosted them and decorated them as if the whole thing was made of cake.

Look at his face does he care? Nope. 

That smile makes all the baking and improvising worth it. 

I would do it all over again. 

Have a great 7th birthday little man.

We love you!!

Sean's Birthday Cake

Having your birthday on Christmas Eve can't be fun.

We try to make the day special for Sean. 

He always picks his cake. 

Sometimes it is a design and other times it is a flavor.

This time it was a little of both.

I found it on Pinterest...of course.
I found the recipe here.
It looked so good, I just had to try it. 

When I looked up the recipe...well lets just say the butter content would 

make Paula Deen proud!!

It is a caramel apple cake.

The inside is an applesauce cake, the frosting is caramel buttercream, and there is caramel sauce between the 3 layers and on the top. 

There is a stick for the caramel apple effect and chopped peanuts pressed on the side. 

It was tasty!

Happy Birthday Sean!!

Birthday Shirt

My baby turned 5!

Little Dude got a party this year. Since we have 4 kids we decided that they would get big neighborhood parties on the significant years and just cake and ice cream with family all the other.

This year was a biggie!

I just got a Silhouette vinyl machine and have been using it for just about everything. 

Birthday Boy T-shirt time!

(Sorry I couldn't get any really good pics of the shirt. He wouldn't hold still)

It was fun to hunt for a cute logo and the candles added the perfect touch for the front.

 What are you supposed to do on your birthday? 

Eat Cake of course!

The face says it all! 

He is annoyed that I make him pose with his cake and yet... he loves the attention. 

Little Dude rocks and he had a great birthday with a cool shirt that all of his friends thought was "cool"!!

I did learn a few tricks when using the fusible vinyl. 

1. Wash the new shirt first. Get the sizing out of it.

2. Turn the shirt wrong side out when washing it. I did have a corner come up in the wash but a quick press with the iron fixed it.

3. Don't rub the iron on the project. Press gently and lift. I kinda goofed up the Y in birthday because I moved the iron instead of lifting it right off.

Have fun!!