Buddy’s Birthday was last week. Our little man turned 5-can you believe it?
To celebrate we held a backyard BBQ, complete with splashing pool, homemade pinata, and 11 screaming kids all between the ages of 12 and 4. Yes, their parents were there, and yes, there was beer 🙂
Boys don’t seem to be as much into the whole theme birthday thing. Buddy’s party was nominally a “Lego” theme, which means that I made a Lego cake, and he got lots of Lego’s as gifts. I tried to make a lego pinata, but it was less than successful. So I went with the classic balloon shape.
The cake, on the other hand, came out wonderfully! I based it on Amy’s Lego cake. Hers was made with marshmallows for the little prongs, mine was a bit bigger and utilized cupcakes.
First I mixed up 2 boxes of chocolate cake mix (Aldi’s brand nach). I baked them in an 8X8 pan, an 9×11 pan, and a 6 count cupcake pan. First I created a “level playing field” by using my big bread knife and cutting the top of each cake so it was flat, not domed. Ditto for the cupcakes.
The resulting “leftovers” went in a zippered bag-destined to become part of a trifle sometime in the near future.
Next I cut each of the cakes in half, and used some leftover orange icing (from the birthday cupcakes I made for Buddy to take to camp) to glue the layers together. This made a square and a rectangle.
The cupcakes were then glued on top to make the “prongs” of the lego.
Now at this point what I SHOULD have done is put the whole shebang into the freezer. Freezing it at this point would have given me a nice hard surface to work with when I started putting on the crumb coat.
But I didn’t. So the cake sort of tore as I was spreading the frosting on. But I charged ahead and continued. I applied the crumb coat-a thin coat of icing meant to trap the crumbs. Then put it in the fridge for a couple of hours to harden up.
After the crumb coat hardened I was able to put the final coat of frosting on. It was a bit difficult to ice around the cupcakes, and it wasn’t anywhere near as smooth as a professional cake would be, but it came out pretty darn cute.
So what was your best birthday cake idea?
That’s really cute! great job.
Oh, awesome! I love it when you can make cakes shaped like other stuff. 🙂
Great job, Jenn! We did a Lego cake this year too, but I just used marshmallows. I am sure yours was much tastier! Good job, momma!!
Oh, I also meant to say that I had a REALLY hard time frosting that cake myself. It was really bothering me, but no one else seemed to mind 🙂
Wow! That’s brilliant. It turned out great.
Now I want some trifle. . .
Love the lego cake. I was stuck doing a ‘Tom and Jerry’ cake this year, there are a few (not great) photos on my blog.
I think I prefer the idea of using the cupcakes for the top instead of marshmallows and the colours are brilliant.
Very cute! I bet my boys would love one of those.
I did a cake that was 16 individual blocks for my oldest son’s first birthday, each decorated differently. NEVER. AGAIN. Sure, it was totally cute, but wow, I way underestimated the time it would take. Not to mention that I was 9 months pregnant (oops!) and about dropped from sheer exhaustion before the party even started. It’s still definitely my favorite, though.
I did a Spongebob-themed cake LAST year for Kat’s birthday. It was on my old cooking blog. I don’t post there anymore, and haven’t moved all of the posts to the current blog yet, but you can see the pictures there if you like.
Totally cute 🙂
this year my 10 year old asked for his dad’s ginger cheese cake for his party. Not exactly frugal, but way less than buying one. It was yummy too.
Evelyn
Cute !
Have to remember that in Dec. when grandson turns 5.
I love the idea of storing the extra cake for a trifle. I usually just pick at it until it’s gone…not good.
LOVE the lego idea. I’ll have to try that. For my son’s first b-day, I made 2 small-ish 6x6x6 cakes (one for him to dive into and one for my parents and husband and I to share) and decorated them like baby blocks. I put numbers and animals (easy ones) on each side and piped the edges to finish it. It turned out pretty cute! Not completely “Martha” but it was eaten, not framed, so how perfect did it need to look!?!?!
Cool Cake!
Looks great!
I am so LAZY when it comes to icing cakes–don’t like using the extra butter for frosting, either.
I usually go with a pound cake. For Andrew’s birthday, I let him make a real LEGO creation and stuck that in the middle.
Not as special, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Aren’t boys easy that way?!?
Very cute! An easy way to get super smooth icing is to use a 4 inch foam paint roller. After your icing crusts then you just roll over it. If it starts sticking then wait and try again. It will take forever to crust if the humidity is high though. Although here in AL I just turn the A/C down a little to help me. I have a foam roller just for cakes.
That came out great! 🙂
The cake is awesome and also very helpful since my 6 year old has already requested a Lego cake for his next bday (luckily I have until February!).
I just made a Pacman Cake complete with the ghosts, you can see it here: http://coupondivas.com/pacman-birthday-cake-made-by-kitty/
Happy Birthday!!
Kitty
Awesome. I want one for my birthday 🙂
So… Thomas, my 1-week-from-6-year-old is having a Lego party. I thought “oh wouldn’t it be cute to make giant lego blocks?” So I bought a bunch of supplies and started reading up…now I’m really intimidated! Well, your’s looks great, we’ll see!!!
Mary-You’ll do great! The crumb coat is key though-glue the “pegs” on, then cover with a thin layer of frosting-don’t worry about crumbs stuck in it or anything. . . then refrigerate to harden that. They you can frost all those nooks & crannies much more easily 🙂
Hi, I just did my son’s 7th birthday party yesterday. Same theme of Legos. It was a simple party. More or less I did the cake as you did. I also used m & m’s to spell out his name on the red frosting (green, yellow, blue), and made a number 7 out of small legos. It was cute though not perfect. Your cupcakes look so much better than mine. I put mine in cupcake paper cups, and they got stuck, so in the effort of unpealing them, they were broken up. AH! anyhow, we managed. 🙂 thanks for sharing.
I’m sure your son was thrilled, and in the end that’s what really matters-not how perfect or imperfect your cupcakes were 🙂