A birthday cake to die for

Here's the birthday boy, so excited about his one-of-a-kind cake that he can hardly contain himself. 

I can tell he's growing up because he asked for a grown up cake. I told him he could have anything. (I'm waiting for one of them to ask for Mater.)

I've already done Bob the Blob, Elmo and others. But this big kid wanted a cake made out of Chocolate Mousse. How grown up is that? He's more worried about flavor and texture than appearance. Sigh. 

Of course I had to have a little cake with it. It was a birthday after all. Here's how I made it happen. I baked the bottom layer of cake in my spring form pan. After it cooled, I spread the chocolate mousse on top (still in the pan) and then froze it for two hours. Once it was hard enough for the mousse to hold its shape, I released the pan, removed the cake and spread chocolate ganache along the sides and piped little spirals around the top and bottom edge. Check out the side view. 

  

You know how you don't really feel different the day after your birthday. There's not some magical switch that clicks over to say "I'm 20 now." Well, this cake was that switch for me. The sad part is that he's not a little boy anymore. The happy part is, I get to eat chocolate mousse.

Topping it off

Three tips to wonderful cake.

1. If you are baking a cake mix, add 1/2-3/4 cup of pudding. The flavor could be any you choose. Here are a few combos I like:

1. White cake mix/white chocolate pudding
2. German chocolate cake mix/chocolate pudding
3. Dark chocolate cake mix/cheesecake pudding
4. Fudge chocolate with chocolate chip cake mix/vanilla pudding (this is the combo I used in the cake pictured)

2. Use a cake syrup to keep your cake moist longer or to add another layer of flavoring

1. Combine 1/2 cup sugar with 1/2 cup water. Warm over medium heat until the sugar dissolves - do not boil. 
2. Add 1 tsp flavoring (I used coconut in the dark chocolate cake - so good). 
3. Brush over cooled cake before frosting. 
4. The taste of the syrup is more pronounced the second day. I like to make my cakes 24 hours in advance so the flavors have time to mellow together.

3. Presentation. Presentation. Presentation

1. If you are going to go to all the work to make a cake taste good - you should take the extra steps to make it look good too. 
2. Cut off the tops of your layers. This evens out the cake and helps to keep it level when you stack.
3. Use the parts you cut off to decorate the sides. Crumble the tops to small pieces, frost the sides of the cake. While frosting is still moist, press the crumbs into the sides. It looks so professional and it's soooooo easy.

4. I like to do swirls or some other decoration on the top of the cake. But if you want to do random peaks that works as well. The important thing is to not skimp on the frosting. It's always better to have too much than too little.

Hope this helps in your decorating! Now, I'm going to go eat cake.

Happy Birthday Roo

Imagine waking up all bleary eyed and fuzzy haired...



To find 71 balloons waiting outside your door.



Would you realize it was your third birthday? Would you care that it was your birthday as you frolicked in the girlie bliss?



Roo didn't. When the novelty of 71 balloons in the house dwindled a smidge she came over to enjoy her bir-day breakfast of muffins and Orange Julius.



And tonight, she will enjoy her four-layer cake. Two layers are yellow and two are deep dark chocolate.



I know, where's the barbie/horse/Backyardigans cake I usually do? This year, because I could get away with it, I wanted to try piping. I liked the look, though the black frosting tasted funny.

Happy Birthday Roo Bear.

Furture Red Sox

So I was a little stressed out after the Minion cake. All that hand painting with frosting – whew. Bug’s birthday is next and after last year (the 8-tiered Bob the Blob cake) I braced myself for his request.

I think I got off easy. In fact I KNOW I got off easy. He asked for a Red Sox jersey with his name and number on it. (Can anyone hear angels singing?)



It just so happens that six months before his birthday I was at Wal Mart perusing the cake supplies. There’s so much cool stuff on that isle. Well, I stumbled upon a Wilton cake mold in the shape of a T-shirt on sale for $2.00. That’s not a typo, I said TWO DOLLARS. How could I pass that up? You guessed it, I couldn’t. So in my pantry sat the exact cake mold I needed to make his dream birthday cake.

Sometimes it’s good to be mom.

Bug loves to share his birthday with his cousin. They were born three days apart and loved each other at first site. My sister-in-law offered to host our mutual family. My nephew doesn’t love birthday cake – but he always eats mine. So I offered to make him a matching cake with his name and number. He’s as much of a baseball lover as my son. Plus!! He’s a Red Sox fan. The stars were all aligned.



I wanted to cover the cakes – one chocolate and one yellow – in fondant to get that smooth, fabric look. But Bug put a stop to that, because he doesn’t like the taste. So I stuck with butter cream. I don’t see anyone complaining.

Code: Make a Birthday Cake

Have you seen MEGAMIND?
Here's the trailer, check it out.



My kids love it. I wasn't so sure, but the humor isn't all slam-your-hand-in-the-car-door-and-scream. (Although there is some of that.) There's a lot of wordy humor - and I love wordy humor. There's also a nice theme about making your life what you want it and not just taking the path you see before you.

All the warm fuzzies aside - I cringed when Cole said he wanted a Minion cake for his birthday.
REALLY?!

I gave Hubby that you-have-got-to-be-joking look. And do you know what he said? He had the nerve to back up the kid! "I know how you love a good challenge, Hon."

REALLY?!

My first visions would have made Kerry Vincint proud.


I quickly scrapped the idea of sugar blowing a giant fish bowl and carving Minion out of cake. It just wasn't practical on my limited time schedule. So I went with a simplified version.



Here's the code.



For stability sake I did borrow a food network idea. I used rice crispie treats for the front. I made them in a round bowl and cut off the top and bottom so it would stand.




The birthday boy loved it! My only worry? What will they ask for next?