Birthday cake: second try success

Every year I look forward to creating a birthday cake for the kids. And every year Mark says I spend way too much time thinking about it.

I’ve made a Sleeping Beauty birthday cake, with the doll inside and the cake as her gown. I’ve done a cake in the shape of a bowl of ice cream. I made a big purple figure 8 — out of two kinds of cake — to celebrate Lexi‘s 8th birthday.

For Jack‘s 2nd birthday, I wanted to make a train cake. But his dislike for any sweet treats but glazed doughnuts, made me shelve my idea. Until my idea to make a glazed doughnut cake for his birthday was nixed by both Mark and Lexi due to their dislike of glazed doughnuts and that it wouldn’t be a crowd-pleaser at his party.

So, I went back to the train idea just a day before the party. And, well, the positive part of the experience is that I learned a few things. I like to carve into the cake to create a shape, and don’t use the molded pans.

I quickly learned that I started out with a cake size way too small. And then I learned that the details of the Thomas the Tank Engine were going to take much longer than the few hours I stole from our gate-building project. I did figure out how to carve the shape and construct the structure of the cake. I made wheels out of Oreos and coal out of the Oreo crumbs. I also learned out that frosting half the Oreo is perfect for making the Thomas face.

So while Mark kept walking by, complimenting my progress, and watching the time slip away from our building project, I shelved the train cake once again. (I plan to try it again some day.)

I quickly made Sesame Street cupcakes instead (see above). Now those were crowd pleasers with Jack’s friends and family. Still, Jack declined to indulge in a cupcake. Next year, I’ll make the cake that he’ll like. We’ll celebrate age 3 with the doughnut “cake.”