I thought I would keep a little ongoing diary here of the Birthday Cakes I have made for my family (mostly for my two kiddos). It’s been a learning experience, and as the years have gone by I think they’ve gotten better. I hope they will continue to do so. This is something I take great joy in doing (making their cakes myself, and making them special), and I’m hoping that at least my daughter will continue the tradition (my son is welcome to do so also if he likes….just his Daddy is not so much the baker, so I’m not expecting much on that front.)

Here is my very 1st BDay Cake…for my daughter’s 1 year old birthday. I didn’t get pictures early enough, but it was a white sheet cake teddy bear, with coconut sprinkled onto the cake as fur and mento eyes. She had her own personal mini teddy bear cake too — but no pic of that exists that I can find. Boo hoo!

1st Birthday - White Teddy Bear Cake

The second cake I ever made was for her 2nd Birthday party (of course), which had a Hawaiian theme. I mad the gummy bear fish myself, and the “sand” was brown sugar.  I bought the little Hawaiian clothes from Michael’s in their scrap booking section (Jolee’s).  The frosting was just white, canned frosting and I sprayed it with blue food color spray. The palm trees are drink stirring sticks.

2nd Birthday - Hawaiian Scene Cake

The next birthday was my daughter’s 3rd BDay party, which had a Pink Poodle theme. I was still using store bought frosting, but had graduated to trying to use Wilton tips (wondering why I was having so much trouble).  Still, I was pretty happy with this at the time, and I think given that I was using the store bought frosting I did pretty darn good on keeping it together. [that stuff is impossible to work with!!!!]

3rd Birthday - Pink Poodle Cake

Shortly after the Pink Poodle party, our son had his 1st BDay party, which was themed “Jungle Animals.” I made a lion cake, and made him his own personal lion cake to smash and destroy.  Once again, store bought frosting, colored, and Wilton tips.

1st Birthday - Lion Cake for Jungle Theme

And his personal cake…the nose was fruit rollup cut into triangles.

1st Birthday - Personal Lion Cake for Jungle Theme

Our daughter’s 4th Birthday followed, for which she had a Cowgirl theme.  I made the carrot using fondant and parsley.  The bridle was red licorice (the swizzler kind that you can pull apart),  and they eye and bridle holder were lifesavers. This is still using store bought frosting, but I’m getting better at working with it at this point.

4th Birthday - Pony/Horse Cake

My son’s 2nd birthday followed. I made him a “John Deere” cake, as that was the theme of the party. I went to the grocery store and asked the gal at the bakery counter if I could buy the “John Deere Kit”, which they do sell (you know they will sell you any of that cake stuff for like $5?). Anyhow, I bought the little accessories. I think my son still has them in his room somewhere.  Again — the store bought frosting and some coloring. I just used a knife to make the grooves for the plowed field.

2nd Birthday - John Deere Cake

My daughter’s 5th birthday followed. She wanted a girl pirate birthday party. I ordered the pirate cake accessories off eBay. They are by Wilton, and come with instructions. It was very intimidating. I can’t believe I pulled this off with store bought frosting. I swear it almost killed me to not have this thing melt and sag into itself. I used rolos for the cannons, which ended up being a fantastic idea.  This one was completely over the top. It was “4 stories tall” as far as cakes go.

5th Birthday - Girl Pirate Cake

My son’s 3rd birthday party he wanted Lightning McQueen. I made a race car cake with Mater & McQueen on it. I went and got accessories from the Grocery store bakery once again.  Oh — and more store bought frosting here, and working with BLACK frosting for the 1st time, which was kind of NOT fun.

The confetti on the right of the cake is supposed to be fans in the stands. I also tried to do a checkerboard on the side and used some McQueen and Mader candies from Michael’s on the sides of the cake.

3rd Birthday - Lightning McQueen Cake from Cars

My daughter’s 6th Birthday she wanted to be a “Kitty Cat” birthday after our newly acquired Orange Tabby. (see the whole blog post I did on the process here – An Orange Tabby Cat Themed Birthday Party.)  I decided to make ice cream cone orange tabby cat sugar cookie “cakes” for each child. It was a real experience. The kids went nuts over it.

This was (and I’m almost certain, will be) my very last attempt at using store bought frosting to do any homemade birthday cakes. Alleluia and Amen.

6th Birthday - Orange Tabby Cat Ice Cream Cone Sugar Cookie Cupcakes

Then my son’s 4th Birthday he wanted to be themed after his new favorite cartoon “The Penguins of Madagascar”. I have a few blog entries on this experience, namely Penguins of Madagascar Birthday Fun, and Penguins of Madagascar Birthday Cake.  This was the very 1st cake I ever used homemade buttercream frosting on, and I will NEVER EVER go back. This was 1000X easier to work with than all the ones before, at least, after I got the transfer process down that is.

The letters were little graham cracker cookie letters that I got in the bread/bakery section of Tom Thumb. They were just sitting there, conveniently one day, while I was headed for the produce section. They screamed “use me on a cake!!!!”, so I did.

4th Birthday - Penguins of Madagascar Cake

This last Feb (2010) for my Father-in-Law’s BDay, which coincided with our Superbowl party, I made him some little football cupcakes using oval shaped malt balls. It was kind of fun to use my Wilton tips to do the grass, as I hadn’t done that before and was curious how it would turn out.

This was attempted after the class I took at Cake Carousel, where I saw the teacher do something very similar with easter cupcakes.  Her grass turned out a little longer and more realistic looking.  I think I just need to get the consistency of the frosting down, and the pressure to use with the tip….but overall I was pretty pleased. I think there is lots of potential for making fun things with “grass” on them in my future.

Birthday / Superbowl Football in Grass Cupcakes

Next came Riley’s 7th Birthday. The Theme was “Riley and the Rockers” and the kids got to perform on stage with a “real band” — which was Daddy on Guitar and Grandpa Bill on Drums. I made little mini-microphone cupcakes (I got the idea from the What’s New Cupcake Cookbook).  I used plain cake donut holes — which did you know that any Dunkin Donuts will make you a ton of these for about $5 if you just order them a few hours in advance? I love those guys! Otherwise, those are really hard to find I found out (call any Mom & Pop donut shop, they’ll think you’re nuts).  I used silver sprinkles instead of the balls shown in the cookbook — since I read that the balls contain a tiny amount of real silver in each one and are not actually considered “edible”, and I wasn’t putting just 1 little silver ball on there, I was going to ROLL the frosted donut hole in the darn balls. Ugh. So, the silver, flat sprinkles worked ok I guess.

7th Birthday -- Riley and the Rockers

7th Birthday -- Riley and the Rockers

Next up, Kim’s 5th Birthday. He wanted a Dinosaur Birthday Party. I outdid myself by about 100% on this one. I ordered this motion activated popping dinosaur thing that goes on the cake. Then also ordered and searched and bought all kinds of different rock looking kinds of candy (some from online, some from candy stores, some from the cake store, some custom jelly bellies that looked speckled like little dinosaur eggs.). I also got some plastic trees and bushes. I used spray-can red frosting for the lava, but the rest of the lava was homemade. I used wooden kabob sticks to hold the volcano in place since it kept wanting to collapse. It all ended up great, but took a lot of planning and thinking in advance how I was going to get this to all come together. Here are the shots of the latest cake.

5th Birthday - Dinosaur Theme

5th Birthday - Dinosaur Theme

So, what’s next. I’ll start asking about June I guess.  I LOVE making cakes for their Birthdays.

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