Cake-a-Palooza

My palms are a little sweaty and my heart is palpitating at the rate of a shrew mouse which can only mean one thing -- Sammy's having a birthday party. I always get nervous whenever one of my girls is approaching another full year's travel around the sun. It's stressful planning parties and even more so when it's a party for a child. Children are so pure in the way that they express their emotions which is why I always strive to produce a grin as large as a watermelon slice with each cake I create.
Each year I try to create cakes that represent my children's interests. For instance, I made a flower pot cake for Sammy the year that she was really interested in dirt, flowers and bugs.
Here are some images of cakes I've made. This one was for Alex's 1-year birthday. At a wee 1-year old, she really didn't have any interests aside from clinging to me, so for a theme I took the pattern straight from the birthday paper plates and napkins and replicated them in sugar cookies that I used as cake toppers. Amazingly they came out exactly as I had hoped. This was a difficult cake in that I had to first use a knife to freehand draw the animal cutouts from the dough. Not too bad for an amateur I must say.

This was Alex's 3rd birthday. I purchased a cupcake pan that was the shape of ice-cream cones. What kid isn't interested in ice-cream right? I made a whipped cream frosting and iced the cupcakes like soft serve ice-cream. Super fun.

This is the year that Sammy took ballet class. Again, I freehand drew the ballerina in the dough and then cut it out. The head kept popping off so I had to hold the head for photos or use tape to keep it on when there was no one available to stand there to hold it in place. Even the mistakes are fun and memorable.

This was was my absolute favorite cake. This was the year that Sammy discovered dirt, flowers and bugs. It was such inspiration for me. I used fondant to make the flower pot then covered the top of the pot with cookie crumbs. I placed gummy worms on the top and used real flowers in small vials of water that I tucked into the cake so it really did look like the flowers were growing out of the dirt.

Last year Sammy really got into Scooby Doo so I made a Mystery Machine van cake, but those photos were gobbled up by my computer so I don't have pictures to share with you. I know, bummer huh?

This weekend I'm making another cake. I'll try to have images for you next week. Have a good weekend.