ducks' pond birthday cake

I started out with plans to make a bottle cap cake, but the kiddo started looking at the cake books and really wanted his dad's birthday cake to have ducks on it.

These were made using the directions in What's New Cupcake?  by Alan Richardson and Karen Tack. We used marshmallows instead of donut holes for the heads and mini chocolate chips for the eyes, but otherwise the ducks are pretty close to their predecessors. We chose the "melted frosting" approach to coating the ducks, which was a success.

The pond is colored buttercream through a star tip, and I used chocolate rocks and confetti sprinkles around the edge of the platter for the shore.

And yes, it looks more appropriate for a baby shower than a grown man, but the Mr. was a good sport about our kiddo's decision to add some ducks into his birthday celebration.

But sometime soon I'm going to try again to make the bottle cap cake I'd planned on. Unless my kiddo's agenda sounds more fun.

Are you working on any non-conventional food lately? Anybody else have kids who like to play art director?

Thanks for reading!

rainbow tie - dye birthday cake

Happy Birthday to Me!




I saw a similar cake on Pinterest awhile back and wanted to replicate it, but the only recipe I found was pretty wild, including diet Sprite and diet pudding mix. Since I avoid artificial sweeteners when possible, I chose to go a more straight-forward route.

Pretty simple; mix up a box of white cake mix according to package instructions. Scoop out a cup or so, dye it red, add raspberries. Divide evenly and dollop in the center of two prepared pans. Scoop out another cup or so, dye it orange, add mandarin orange bits. Divide evenly and spoon on top of the two red dollops. Repeat for yellow and green, without fruit. Help mounded batter settle by striking the side of the pan with your hand.

Repeat for blue, indigo, and purple, mixed with blueberries. Once settled evenly in pan, bake in pre-heated oven. Cool, remove from pans, frost with confetti frosting.





I want to try it with cupcakes next!

(Other Pinterest inspiration posts: here, here, and here!)


Pin It

delusions of grandeur

When I've watched one too many episodes of Ace of Cakes on the Food Network, I get these ideas in my head . . .

My husband Shawn's birthday cake this year was made with a Fallout 3 video game theme. It's in the shape of a bomb shelter, complete with marzipan Vault Boy, Vault-Tec sign, rivets, and rocks; and graham cracker crumb dirt.

This is a close-up of Vault Boy. He's holding a blaster gun, which has the candle's wick sticking out of the barrel.

Hand-painting and aging the plaque with food coloring was my favorite part! Getting the white frosting dyed grey was my least favorite part.

This is the specially-requested Black Forest cake I made for my god-daughter's tenth birthday.

The frosting is actually whipped heavy cream, and I made the masquerade mask and bowling set out of marzipan.