Buddy’s birthday was upon us (the big SIX) and life was busy. When is it not? We needed a cake for a small family only celebration on the big day-a large friend party would follow later in the month.
What to do?
Those of you who are long time readers know that I enjoy making cakes for the kids birthdays. I’ve made and blogged about my Princess Cakes (One & Two), Hannah Montana Cake*, A “Quilt” cake* and Lego Cake.
I’ve also made, but never blogged about:
A Construction cake
A “Blue’s Clues” Pawprint cake
A Swimming Pool Cake
So obviously I had set the bar pretty high. I couldn’t just go with a basic round cake and “Happy Birthday”. It had to BE something.
Lately Buddy has been interested in dominos. Yankee Bill likes to play dominos on the computer (pogo.com) and also when we go camping. Buddy doesn’t play yet (although he could-actually we need to do a family game night soon & teach the kids) but he has discovered the joy of making a track of dominos and then knocking over the first and watching them all go down. So I decided to make a domino cake.
I baked 1 box of cake mix in a rectangular casserole pan, cooled it and cut into two rectangles (there was a bit left over for snacking). I SHOULD have frozen them for several hours at this point to make frosting easier, but I had left it to the last minute. I stacked & frosted them (it was ugly-the side facing away from you is all torn up and awful looking) then used those round white mints to make the dots. Yes-that is store bought frosting and not my frosting recipe. I told you I left it till the last minute.
End result? I did not think it was my best work, but it was cute and he was pleased! And isn’t that what it’s all about? The birthday boy being pleased? A similar cake would be fun for a game night either with family or friends. After all, there is just something old fashioned and fun about playing dominos and talking smack 🙂 Then again, maybe that’s just my old Army training deployment memories catching up with me (Spades & Dominos are what soldiers play!).
*Scroll through the post to see the cake pictures & descriptions
hi. what did you use for dirt on the construction cake? my son would love this for his 2nd birthday coming up in november.
thanks
Lisette-I ground up Oreo type cookies (you know me, they were store brand) in my food processor. I was going to try to coat the whole cake but that didn’t seem to want to work, so instead I mixed them with a bit of frosting to make them stick a bit more and then mounded them on top of the cake etc. Good luck with your cake project-I’d love for you to come back and post a link here in the comments when you are done so we can all see it.
A couple of tips for you: if you don’t have time to freeze your cake before frosting, try piping it on. I use the flat tip for the sides and it sticks pretty well that way, not to mention looking pretty. Also, mix canned frosting with an electric mixer to incorporate some air. It lightens it up for easier spreading/piping.
I always love to see cake ideas. I’m not a big cake decorator, so any ideas are always welcome!
loved the cakes. I have a boy who has to have brownie cakes for his birthday. For his fifth birthday I fashioned a brownie cake into a alligator for a jungle party. I’m going to look for pictures an blog that. LOVE the construction cake. For chocolate cake lovers I have a chocolate cake that is wonderful at my website http://www.answersformoms.org. Click on this link and get a load of it. chocolate
Cute!! I love the domino cake – very creative!! 🙂
Lisette- Another idea to help the “dirt” oreo crumbs to stick is to mix them with vanilla pudding. I once made a dump truck cake and it wasn’t going to be quite enough to feed everyone, so I put out a tray of little bathroom cups filled with vanilla pudding and oreo crumbs on top and they were such a big hit we actually had cake leftover!
Oh, and I wanted to say that we can be frugal with our time, too! I’ve spent way more hours than I should on making a cake JUST SO, only to have the birthday boy or girl not really care. A cute idea to enhance a theme goes a long way and probably hits the spirit of the birthday for the kids even better! Your domino cake did the trick. 🙂
The construction cake is brilliant, haven’t seen anything like that for a kids cake before, really awesome idea.
Oh, you and I have similar taste as we make cakes. Mine are never professional looking, but my kids always love how creative they are. hahah… Thank you for sharing your creations. Very fun, and I would love to use some of your ideas, if that is okay. blessings.
Celita-of course! Feel free to copy as many ideas as you like 🙂
I would like to know how to make a home made pound cake with self rising flower?