LEGO Birthday Cake

I made Oliver & Jo's LEGO birthday cake! I'd seen a few cakes like these online, but couldn't find any tutorials on how to make them. I did my best, but I wish I'd taken the time at the beginning to cut the sides of the cake to be completely straight. The final product looks a little bumpy. Live and learn, right?

I started work on the bricks a few days before I baked the cake. I bought silicon LEGO block molds that were fairly inexpensive on Amazon (3 for $7.75). I also bought fondant this year instead of making my own. I used an online coupon from Michael's and bought fondant for $5.

I used a melon baller to help measure to make sure my blocks were all about the same size. The first set of fondant LEGO blocks got stuck in the mold. I dusted in the inside with powdered sugar, and that fixed the problem. The rest came out without any problems.

My final supply list:
Fondant pack of green, red, yellow, and blue
White fondant
Powdered sugar (to dust the inside of the molds)
Silicone LEGO block molds
2 boxes of cake (and the ingredients needed to make the cake--eggs, oil, etc)
1 can of frosting (for the crumb layer)
Black gel frosting for the lettering
LEGO figures to decorate the cake

I didn't want to use the blocks up the size of the cake. Instead, I just cut out rectangles from rolled fondant to look like the sizes of the LEGO blocks. I kept all of the fondant pieces in the fridge so they wouldn't lose their shape. 

Two nights before the party, I baked the cake. I used two boxes of cake mix, and I made two 13x9 inch cakes. The next day, I frosted and stacked them as a crumb layer. That afternoon, I covered the cake in a very thin layer of white fondant. It will save you a lot of trouble later if you make sure all of the sides are as flat as possible! I dampened one size of the rectangles (water helps the fondant stick), and I built up the walls in a LEGO brick pattern. You can see my progress here:

When I finished, I added some strips of rolled white fondant and made it look like Emmett was unrolling it onto the cake. I stuck fondant on the bottom of the LEGO figures to get them to stick to the cake.

To make the lettering, I just printed a picture of "Happy Birthday" in LEGO font. I set it over the fondant and cut out the red. Then I set it over the fondant and cut out the yellow, and then I set it over the fondant and cut out the white. I stacked them, and then outlined the white lettering in frosting. I made a makeshift frosting bag out of fondant for Good Cop to hold to try to make it look like he was writing "Happy Birthday."

I found the candy letters at the grocery store. I wanted to give each of the LEGO Movie characters a job, so Benny got the letter R to look like he was spelling out the names.

When the fondant was still soft, I stuck Wyldstyle's arms in the block. I refrigerated her and the block until it was hard, and then I added them to the cake.

Larry the barista is helping make the cake, too!

There's the finished cake! I'd added the white frosting shells to the top to conceal the spot where the sides met the top. I didn't like how it turned out, so I covered it up ;-) I finished the evening before the party and then kept it in the fridge so the fondant wouldn't get too soft and start to droop.

It took a lot of planning and work. I really wish I'd spent more time getting the sides straight, but I still love the cake. It's a lot of fun!

Joanna Sings "Happy Birthday" to Daddy

Joanna learned to sing a song! After we had a little birthday celebration for Andrew on Thursday, Jo started singing, "Happy Birthday to You." She was really excited to see another cake today for Andrew and started to sing again. I'm a proud mommy, and I think it's so impressive! She even pretends to blow out the candles as she sings!

                       

Here's us making a cake for Andrew at Grandma Judy & Grandpa Larry's house. We just used a box cake mix, and I used a chocolate frosting recipe from Allrecipes.com (I doubled it). Oliver and Jo sampled the frosting and decided it was pretty good.

Oliver sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top of the first layer. 

I topped the cake with the second layer and frosted it.

Oliver added chocolate chips, sprinkles, and Heath pieces to the top.

And then he added candles.

He wanted to use the frosting bag, too, so I squeezed it while Oliver moved it around.

Here is the finished birthday cake!

Oliver got to help blow out the candles again.

In our family, I guess birthdays turn into birthday weekends! No complaints here. Yum.

Happy 30th Birthday, Andrew!

Andrew's birthday is today, the first day of summer! We celebrated Andrew's birthday with his parents last night because he is going camping with his buddies overnight tonight. Colleen brought home a cake, and Oliver decorated it with frosting and candles. Ever since, both kids have been obsessed with playing pretend birthday cake. Oliver makes cakes out of play dough and sticks candles in them. Jo sings (!!!) "Hah Buh to you!" Then they blow out the pretend candles. Cute!

Happy Birthday, Andrew!

Almost Funfetti Cake Pops

Oliver was nice to all the kids at the park a few days ago, so Dad took him to the store and bought him cake pop kit! These poor kids have had it rough the last couple weeks. There have been many long hours of us working while the kids are left to play in their room. I feel awful about it, but the work is almost done (now we just need to get carpet installed...).

This morning, I told Oliver it was time to make them. He got so excited!

Oliver got to do the mixing. There's not that much cake, so it only bakes about 12 minutes. As it baked, Jo checked out the batter in the bowl. She even got a little taste and let me know it was pretty good stuff.

After it came out of the oven, we let it cool. Oliver then broke up all the cake with his fingers.

He mixed it with the frosting, and then I formed it into tight balls. We dipped the cake pop sticks in the melted chocolate and stuck them into the cake balls. Most of the cake balls held up for this part. Two broke a bit, and I had to use my hands to really mash them together over the stick.

After the cake pops cooled for a full half hour, we pulled them out of the fridge. I told Oliver that I'd dip them in the melted white chocolate, and he could put the sprinkles on. The cake pops did not hold up to dipping. Not even a little bit. After the second one bit the dust, I just spooned the melted white chocolate on. That ended up using too much white chocolate, and we started to run out near the end. I only lightly topped the last few with chocolate to stretch it out.

Of the 12 cake pops we made, four broke off. I used white chocolate to sort of mash them back together. They look like turds.

I poked holes into the box to hold up our pops. Pillsbury should totally do this as part of their kit.

It was still fun. I would definitely make these again with Oliver. He loved it!

The down-side to these were 1) they make a huge mess, 2) they take a long time, and 3) are very unpredictable. I would never make them for a birthday party or gathering just because there would be so much waste to get a few good quality ones. When we make them again, I might try freezing the cake pops solid before dipping.

My Attempt at the Baby Bump Cake

Once again, browsing Pinterest has be in over my head! I have so many things planned for the shower this weekend, and so little time to get them done! Heaven help me, I found a really cute "Baby Bump Cake" pin on Pinterest. I decided to tackle that project today.

I looked at craft stores for a half-ball cake pan but had no luck. I ended up ordering an 8" one from Amazon for about $8. I used two boxes of cake mix for this project. After mixing one box, I made two cupcakes and poured the rest into a 13"x9" cake pan. I used a full box of mix for the half-ball (make sure to grease & flour your ball pan really well!). In addition to boxed mix, I also just used a can of pre-made frosting from the store for the crumb layer.

Here's how I decorated mine:

Step 1: Spread a layer of frosting over your sheet cake.

Step 2: Arrange the ball cake and cupcakes on the sheet cake.

Step 3: Trim away the excess cake on the sides (don't discard or eat that cake yet!).

Step 4: Use the parts of the cake you cut off to fill in some gaps in the "body," using frosting as your glue. Below, you can see the cupcakes before and after I filled the gaps.

Before:

 After:

Step 5: Use the rest of your frosting to create a fairly seamless and smooth cake. The frosting can be very thin. 

Step 6: Use fondant to decorate! You can buy some pre-made at a craft store or cake supply shop. I made my own using this "Rolled Buttercream Fondant" recipe. Originally, I intended to use brown trim like in the original pin, but my brown fondant looked like turds. That wasn't very appetizing, so I scraped that and went with pink.

I have only worked with fondant twice before and still am not at master with it. The surface of my cake has some cracks and stretch marks, but I figure that's just more realistic, right? ;-)

With the cake done, there's not much left for me to do until the morning of the shower. Let's just hope the weather doesn't put a damper on our party... the forecast calls for 8 to 14 inches of snow!

America the Beautiful Cake

I did it!  It's Sunday evening, and I finished my fourth and final entry.

My vision for this cake was to be all about our beautiful country because Southwest Airlines flies domestically and covers almost all of the lower 48 states.  The United States is beautiful.  You can travel around our large country and see rocky beaches, sandy beaches, huge mountains, redwood forests, enormous freshwater lakes, large cities, and quaint towns.  I wanted to try to make my cake to reflect that.

On Friday, I re-purposed the classic birthday cake I'd made and carved it into a map of the United States.  I did it freehand, so it's not perfect, but there's no mistaking what it's supposed to be.

On Friday night, Oliver helped me make another batch of homemade fondant, and we dyed most of it green.   After the kids were in bed,  I rolled it out and did the difficult job of molding it around the cake.  Yup, i did that after working on the Baked Alaska.  I was busy, busy!

Then came the tough but fun part.  Last night (Saturday), I used fondant and made miniature icons to represent a handful of the cities that Southwest flies to.  These are the first four I made.  I made the seashell to represent Southern California (I put it where San Diego would go on my cake map).  I made a miniature hot dog to represent Chicago and a miniature ear of corn to represent Des Moines.  The sun, I used for Southern Florida.

By the time I'd finished, I also made dice for Las Vegas, a mug of coffee for Seattle, the Statue of Liberty for New York, and a Mardi Gras mask for New Orleans.  I added in yellow dots to represent the other cities Southwest flies to, and I made a Southwest airplane for the cake, too.

The cake was all about the beauty of our country's landscape, so I wanted to go somewhere beautiful to photograph it for the contest.  We decided to make the short drive up to Red Rocks Amphitheater and Park.  It's Father's Day, so I snapped a photo of my husband with our kids.  I couldn't have worked all of the hours on these cakes if it wasn't for their support, and I couldn't have had these beautiful pictures without my husband's involvement and help.  Thank you, Family!

Here is the photo I chose for my entry with my "America the Beautiful" cake.

Here is my entry pin on Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066809900/

I've really had fun with this contest.  I'm a competitive person, and I get really excited about contests.  This contest was an absolute blast.  I got to be creative, and I got to bake a ton with my kids.  The photo shoots were the best part, though, because that's when I felt like all my hard work was coming together.

No matter how the contest turns out, I'm glad I spent this week giving it my all.  Happy 41st Birthday, Southwest Airlines!  Thank you for letting me celebrate with you!

#HappyBdaySWA

Baked with LUV

My initial plan for Southwest Airlines' Baked with LUV contest was to have two entries.  Yesterday, I posted my first entry to the contest: a Southwest airplane made from cake.  After posting, I set to work on my second entry.  Oliver and I baked a sheet cake together.  I was about to pop it into the oven to freeze in preparation for carving when something occurred to me.  I could first frost it like a traditional cake, take a fun photo with it, and then scrape off most of the frosting and freeze it to carve later, as planned.  So, just like that, I came up with another entry for this contest.

I used some of my leftover "Southwest Airline Blue" fondant color from my airplane cake to create numbers for the top.  The rest of the cake, I decorated traditionally.  I finished late into the night again, so I stuck the cake in the fridge for photos in the morning.

Cake decorating steps:

My plan was to take a family photo.  Each of us would have a thought bubble popping out of our heads, thinking of a great trip we would want to take.  I would be thinking of Florida and warm, sandy beaches.  Andrew would be thinking of me in a swimsuit.  Oliver would think about Disney World, and Jo--well, Jo would just be thinking about milk.  We would all be in our pajamas, looking a little stressed out, wanting to be on vacation.  Even if Jo cried, it would only add to the charm of the photo.

This morning, I was so tired from staying up late the last two nights that Andrew watched the kids to let me sleep until 7am.  When I finally got up, he had to get dressed to go to work.  Unfortunately, I couldn't wait and postpone the photo shoot to tonight because I needed the sheet cake in the freezer for carving today.  The show must go on, so we took pictures without him.

Things didn't quite go as planned.  Oliver didn't have any clean sets of jammies ready.  So, I put him in underwear shorts and a T-shirt.  I put Jo in a onesie that I thought resembled an undershirt, and I got dressed in an over-sized nightgown.  I got our thought bubbles and Mickey (OK, Minnie) ears ready, set up the camera for some self-portraits, and grabbed the cake.

It went OK.  I felt a little stressed instead of just pretending to be a little stressed for comedy.  Oliver covered himself, which gave the appearance that everyone was dressed for the day except me.  Haha!  I guess it did reflect the life of a stay-at-home mom after all.  Not to do all that extra work for nothing, I settled on the best photo of the group and submitted my second entry.

Here's my entry pin:  http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066795331/


#HappyBdaySWA