Blah Blah Blog: May 2012

One of my few creative outlets is making birthday cakes (or cookies or treats) for my children. They are obviously home-made and unprofessional, but I really love doing it and they love eating them. Here are a few of my creations:

This is DS1's 3yo Train Bday Cake using the William Sonoma Train pan.

And here is a cake I made for the preschool Christmas Party.

These are supposed to be soccer ball cookies I made for DS1 to take to school for his bday.

Thomas the Tank Engine for DS2's 3rd birthday. (I haven't figured out how to turn him around).

And now a commercial for my new favorite Key Lime Pie. Scrumdiddlyumptious.

These are cookies I made for my son's Valentine's party, complete with initial for each of the kids in the class since they were learning their letters. I later learned, to my dismay, that they were handed out randomly. Boo. Oh well, at least I tried.

This was DS1's 6yo bday cake. He picked out the colors. I used Wilton's Race Car pan and my favorite technique: Frozen Buttercream Transfer (FBCT).

For her 5th birthday, I gave my DD1 a tea party complete with petits four. After hours of time and gallons of store-bought frosting, I finally figured out just the right technique and frosting consistency and they turned out really cute. She asked for "those little cakes" again this year and I answered with a a resounding, "No."

Sonic the Hedgehog was also done using the Frozen Buttercream Transfer. Something about it didn't turn out right so I had to do some last minute repairs, but the birthday boy didn't seem to notice.

For each of my kids first birthday, I made a Teddy Bear cake using Wilton's bear pan. I love doing the fur with the grass tip. This bear was for DD2 with her own personal make-a-mess cake below.

I helped my friend Julie make her daughter's first birthday cake and we used fondant for a lot of it. That turned out to be a lot of fun, but a lot of work getting the colors just right. So when she came over for DD1's second birthday, we used pre-colored fondant and played it simple with balloons and balls.

Lightning McQueen was all the rave for DS1 for several years. I used the Wilton Race Car pan to make Lightning when he was four and for his fifth I made this race track cake so he could put more cars on it. The best thing about these two cakes is that our local grocery store's bakery would sell you their colored frosting, so though it was highly processed with no telling what horrible chemicals, it made these two cakes not so time consuming.

A red velvet cake made for DS2's baptism lunch. "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow."

DD1 wanted a "pink and purple princess cake" when she turned three. You can't get much more pink and purple than this. My friend let me borrow her Wilton Doll cake pan, but it is my understanding you can also bake it in the Pampered Chef large batter bowl.

DS2 got a just a regular cake and make-a-mess cake when he turned 1. These clown faces were a hand-me-down from my mother-in-law. No telling how many birthdays these guys helped celebrate over the years.

FBCT, baby! Side note: My sweet nephew broke his arm on my daughter's birthday this year. If you look really closely, you can see I broke this little girl's arm too. So sad. :(