Today I turned 29 (again!). Birthdays make me think of cake. Have I told you how much I love cake yet? I do. And I mean L-O-V-E. Like I would rather have it than a chocolate chip cookie any day. Cake makes me happy. 🙂
Anyway, several times a year I have done special cakes for special people in my life for their birthday. I never do them for myself…too much work…but I always enjoy how excited my family members get when I make their cakes. I usually let them help decide what kind of cake they want…it’s a nice little tradition.
Today I thought that I would take a stroll down memory lane and share some of the cakes that I have made over the years. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Don’t judge! I am sure some of you are better at this than I am! I have no real training (unless you count my ex-husband’s mother doing my first cake with me 17 years ago). This was the first one that I ever did, which I made for our oldest daughter’s second birthday…
I made this bunny cake a couple of years ago when our youngest kiddo turned two. I made my own paper template and I thought it turned out pretty good. I was thinking this would be a really fun cake for Easter, too. Unfortunately, thinking it would be fun for Easter has not actually translated into me MAKING one for Easter! lol
Anyway, August to January we have LOTS of birthdays around here. If you know my husband (which you don’t, but just go with me on this) … then you know that he LOVES to fish…so here’s Fish Cake he got for his birthday one year…
When my baby (who is now four) turned one to commemorate the occasion I made her a Winnie the Pooh cake (Wilton makes great shaped pans that are awesome if you have never decorated a cake before. It’s sort of like a color by numbers! Love you, Wilton’s cake pans!).
Anyway, We love Pooh Bear at our house. I also actually made this same cake for my now-19-year-old for her third birthday many years ago. I thought it was so cute I had to make it again.
Here is another cake that I did from a Wilton cake pan…
I made this Puppy Dog cake I made for Kira’s 12th birthday. You will notice it is the same Wilton Cake Pan mold as the Blues Clues cake…just different frosting 🙂
A few years ago, Kira was OBSESSED with pandas…so you can guess what kind of cake she asked for 🙂
The Panda Bear Cake…
I did a few cakes that I got how-to’s off of Betty Crocker’s website-the panda bear cake, the guitar cake (below), and the popcorn cake (below). Betty knows what she is doing! 😉 Seriously, if you have never decorated a cake before, but want to try…go there!
When Katelyn turned 16 a few years ago, she had a 50’s themed murder mystery party (very fun, by the way). It was about a 50’s rock star, so of course there needed to be an electric guitar cake : )
We loved this popcorn cake (shown below with our boys, Colton and Bryson). I have made it twice. The popcorn on the cake is kettle corn. The redstripes are licorice. The sweet and salty combo was pretty darn good! Another Betty Crocker goodie! And no, Betty is not paying me to tell you this! I just love her!
I have to say this is one of my least favorite of all of the cakes I have done. Too much white for one thing. Should have done the sides blue. And another thing… don’t you think it looks more like a calculator than a cell phone? The buttons are rice crispy treats covered in almond bark. The result…way too sweet. Oh well, live in learn.
This cake was the one we celebrated Colton and CheyAnn’s birthdays with in August a couple of years ago while again picnicking in southern Utah. It was Kira’s birthday, too…her cake is in the next post (She had a separate cake because she lives up in northern Utah with us). 🙂
Gir
This little guy is the cake that we had at Kira’s 14th birthday party with her friends. His name is Gir and I had never heard of him until she told me she wanted a Gir cake.
I have to say I think he turned out cute. I still have no clue who Gir is…thank goodness for internet pictures that we could use to inspire our template! Do you love his fruit roll-up tongue? He looks silly, but it was sure fun to make!
I pretty much free-handed this minion cake from the movie, Despicable Me. If you don’t recognize him, then you have clearly not been paying attention!
Cutting into these cakes is so hard to do after I spend so much time making them, but it’s so fun to see the kids get so excited about them…so it’s worth it in the end!
Last, but not least…I am going to share with you the EPIC FAIL of all of my cakes…I will show you B.C. and A.C. (before collapse and after collapse!). One of our daughters is a Doctor Who FREAK…so of course last year she HAD to have a Tardis Cake. I had never done a cake that tall, before, but I gave it the ol’ college try…
It wasn’t too bad at first. See the frozen Exhibit A, also known as Tardis Cake B.C. (before collapse)…
Truly…not one of my better cakes. Eight layers of cake. Here comes another “live and learn” moment. Sadly, as it defrosted just hours before the party (if you freeze cakes you don’t get so many crumbs while frosting them)…before the party even started…it became Tardis Cake A.C. (after collapse). Before our very eyes it disintegrated…
Seriously. No one touched it. It just collapsed. I tried to save it with kabob skewers. Nope. Too late!
I offered to run to the store and get my daughter a different cake, but she and her Whovian friends thought the cake was awesome anyway. lol
The lessons I learned:
- When you do tall layer cakes you need to put wooden dowels in them to keep them stable.
- Frosting melts quickly in August.
- The teenagers loved the exploded Tardis.
- And most importantly, blue frosting is gross.
I share this wisdom with you willingly. I trust you not to judge me.
The hubby’s birthday is in a few weeks. If his cake turns out well, maybe I will do a tutorial. There will be no 8 layer cake for him. I can’t afford a structural engineer.
See you next time!
Deb
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Jennifer
Tuesday 9th of December 2014
LOVE the Tardis cake ;)
Debra
Wednesday 10th of December 2014
lol THANKS!
Stacy
Monday 8th of December 2014
Oh that is priceless, but hey, it's just a different part of the timeline than you were aiming for. Still a TARDIS none the less!
Debra
Monday 8th of December 2014
Yeah...it was funny...the teenagers actually seemed to like it BETTER because it had collapsed!