Simply Delightful Cakes

This cake was two months past its due date, but my son said it was worth the wait! “It’s better than awesome!”  After making the green ninja, Lloyd, the year before, this one was pretty quick to put together because I already had a good idea of what I was doing.

It's Lego Ninjago time! I was so excited to hear my boy wanted one of these cakes. I had so much fun making it. If I could change one thing, I'd add a couple fondant swords to his back, but I ran out of fondant and time. I love how it turned out regardless! He didn't specify which color he wanted, but I knew deep down, he'd want Lloyd. :) Lego cake for the win! 7 year old boys are awesome!

My sweet middle child turn the big 6 yesterday. Where did the time go?! He's BIG into green, so having a green cake was a big must for him. Since Star Wars is the new thing for little boys, he was eager to request a Yoda cake. After many chats with him, he changed his mind and instead wanted a Ninja Turtle cake. I could tell he was really wrestling with it... I suggested we do both and I can't begin to tell you how big his eyes got!   When he arrived home from school, he literally couldn't contain his excitement and proceeded to bounce off the walls until it was bedtime...5 long hours later!  I love how Yoda turned out! And I'm relieved I finally got Leonardo to stand on his own! In my head they were going to be dueling, but I put off making the "people" until the morning of... Not the best time to start!  The night before I was busy making these Ninja Turtle shell cupcakes for school. I don't need to tell you he loved them, right?

I've got one more cake in the books! Star Wars must have replaced the Superheros this year... And I have one more Star Wars cake to do this week too!   Super impressed with how this one turned out. And I love that I was able to use "Star Wars" font for the letters.  What's a birthday without cupcakes? Chewbacca anyone?

A couple weeks ago, my oldest celebrated his 7th birthday. In the days leading up to his birthday, he was sick on the couch with the flu so the last thing he wanted to think about was cake and what he wanted on it. As he got to feeling better, he decided on a Darth Vader cake. The two of us curled up on the couch and scrolled through Pinterest for ideas until we stumbled upon one similar to this one and he was sold. Despite my hate of black, I made his cake black and cursed the whole time I was attempting to cover it in fondant. Lately I've been doing a lot of buttercream frosting cakes, but since his party was going to be in a humid and warm waterpark, I didn't want to take the chance of it melting off the cake. He loved the little Darth Vader I put on the top of it too, especially since he's holding his birthday candle-light saber. 

Just when I had all my cake "stuff" put away, I pulled it back out to make another superhero cake. By the end of August I will have made 5 this year. Never would have guessed that! I can't tell you how excited I am to share this one with you though!  My dear friend Sara got a hold of me last week in regards to her son's birthday party, which they planned last minute, as in 5 days prior. Seriously something I would do! I put off party planning until the last minute possible. Her son is into superheros, like most boys this age are, so of course he was wanting a superhero cake as well. Here's what they got: In retrospect, I'd probably have made the Superman logo a little bit bigger. Next time... Since there were going to be quite a few kids plus their parents, we figured some extra cupcakes might be a good option. (It's always hard to say how many people a cake will serve - it all depends on the cutter!) She volunteered to pick up some cupcakes t...

Last week I had the pleasure of making a cake for a co-worker. Her son is a huge Marvel fanatic! Without him knowing, she had him tell her his top 5 favorite superheros. They were Iron Man, Captain America, Scarlet Witch, Ant-Man, and Dead Pool. I had only heard of the first two... But low and behold, Ant-Man and Dead Pool sections turned out to be my favorites.   His favorite was the Ant-Man section.  He and his mom were also blown away with the Dead Pool section too. She had no idea who he was either.  Scarlet Witch's cape gave me some problems, but I made it work. Her section was the hardest to come up with because she doesn't have any weapons - just her "M" looking face mask as one of her signatures. I was sure to add that, but opted for adding her cape instead of her little red corset outfit.  Who knew making one superhero cake would lead me to make two more? Just can't get enough of those heros!

Why oh why do I wait until 10pm the night before to start working on decorating cakes? I need to squash this cycle! Anyways, my son turned 5 last month and had a super hero cake at his pool party. I was delighted how well it went over with everyone, especially the moms there! I shouldn't have been surprised when one of them asked me to make her son's cake, but I was surprised because he also wanted super heroes!  I don't normally make rectangular cakes, but thought this would be a good time to try one out - this way it wouldn't look exactly like my son's.   I showed the birthday boy and his mom the sketch I drew up, and he was SO EXCITED! "That's the coolest cake ever!" That's why I do this. The excitement on their faces makes it all worth it! He then proceeded to point out each of the super heroes on the sketch. "There's Superman, and the Hulk, and that one is Captain America, and there's that green guy. I don't know his...

I shouldn't choose favorites, but this is BY FAR my favorite cake that I've done yet - simply because I didn't have any problems! The cakes came out of their pans perfectly and their edges weren't crispy, the fondant didn't give me any grief, and there was no cursing what-so-ever!   Last year my little guy was in love with Ninja Turtles, and he still is (probably more so this year) but he opted to have superheros on his cake instead - and a Ninja Turtle.   Since it was his 5th birthday, I divided the cake into five sections and let him pick the superheros to be on it. He was so confused to how it was going to look so I drew it out the best I could. I need to do that more often! I referenced it over and over during the decorating process! The only thing I'm not so pleased about is the Spiderman portion - mostly because by the time I made /it to piping on the spider, the black dye was separating itself from the frosting making it turn out more gray th...

I challenged myself again with this Lego cake. Because we were on the road for my son's birthday, I told him I would make him a cake when we arrived at out destination. What I forgot to take into account was the elevation. It reeked havoc on the baking time of the cake and the frosting. (The wine came out pretty early!)  I was, however, very thankful my sister-in-law was eager to help out, once I had the cake baked and assembled. I taught her how to make fondant and had her helping me cut out all the Lego blocks for the side. We work on this all afternoon, and finished it up shortly after dinner. And he LOVED it. Mission accomplished!

If one cake wasn't enough to do, I made another one once I completed the Ninja Turtles. Normally I probably would have said no to doing two cakes in a weekend because I don't like to feel rushed. However, I knew the Ninja Turtles weren't going to take too long so I figured I could squeeze another one in.   The only relatively time consuming thing about this cake was baking it....and waiting for the black fondant to set. Otherwise this was a pretty low stress cake! Hooray! These keep getting easier and easier! I was a little disappointed when I dropped the cake off. Having worked at this hotel for 6 years, I should have known the pool area was going to be humid, causing my camera lens to fog up. So I quickly became frustrated with cleaning my lens and didn't quite get the picture I wanted. Ah well.  Happy Birthday Landon!

My son's birthday is on Monday but we celebrated his birthday a few days early. And it's a good thing because he has been waiting for his birthday since October! Last year he had a guitar cake , but this year he insisted on having a Daniel Tiger (from PBS's Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood). I wasn't really feeling it though, so I did a lot of convincing! Jimmy LOVES the color green and everything that is green, so it only makes sense that he likes the Ninja Turtles too. With enough persuading, he agreed on having a Ninja Turtle cake, but Daniel Tiger had to be on it too.    So here is our version of Daniel Tiger + TMNT. I had a lot of fun making this cake too! And I practiced my ombre shading on the outside of the cake...inside will be another project! I'm not sure if he was more excited about the green cake, the Ninja Turtles, or the fact that Daniel Tiger was with the Ninja Turtles. I can image we'll be taking about this cake for months to com...

My son turned 5 years old today and requested a Wreck It Ralph cake. In my mind, I'm thinking "Oh that's going to be pretty easy. It's just a building." Ha! I officially hate square cakes...or maybe I just need more practice! Luckily I was able to cover up most of my boo-boos! In case you haven't seen the movie yet, here is a picture the cake on the movie. I think Ralph and Fix-It Felix turned out great! A lot better than what I had in my mind. Usually it's the opposite!    To prevent them from continuously tipping over on the top, they had to move to the ground for more pictures. : ) He was pretty proud! (Especially since I let him glue the shrubs to the board!)

The day has come and gone when my little boy turned 4! We went round and round when discussing what kind of cake he wanted. We both finally agreed on an airplane cake. Although when I planned it out, it was supposed to have two tiers, I think it turned out pretty darn cute regardless! My little 4 year old with his airplane birthday cake. The first thing he ate was the pilot's nose, followed by the airplane wings :)