Takes the Cake

BAKERS AND MAKERS: Another birthday in our household this past week (Christian), so we baked a cake - and donated it to one of our favorite non-profits,

Birthday Dreams

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The cake request said the recipient loved STEM-y stuff (science, tech, math), and the colors blue and green. So out of that info came the cake pictured above.

As usual, we started with a conceptual drawing of the cake that might be. Some things made the cut, others didn't.

CJ did the baking. The three-layered first tier of the cake is very vanilla, with vanilla buttercream icing and filling. There are some white chocolate pieces in the filling for a little crunch.

The top tier of the cake isn't cake at all, it's a big Rice Krispies treat. We draped that in a batch of homemade marshmallow fondant. It think it's our best drape to date! (We used to be so nervous about this step. Now it's old hat!)

The first tier was crumb coated and then covered in buttercream. Annabelle air brushed that lightly with green and blue, the birthday boys' favorite colors. 

The cake is surrounded by blue and green gumballs. I like the way they look - very festive.

Annabelle transformed the plain white tier into a lab coat. I love the little buttons on it. The photo below is before we added the pocket 'embroidered' with the birthday boy's name. 

A big part of any one of the kids' cakes is the little details. Like melting Jolly Ranchers so that you can shape them into little orbs that will look like bubble so you can put them into the lab flask 

Annabelle cut atoms and equations from sugar sheets.

CJ made the Jell-o to fill the cake topper, an Erlenmeyer flask. When we saw that there are little cups you can buy that look like the flask, we just had to get some for the kid's birthday party. We also bought club soda and some little drink flavoring liquids they could mix and match.

Can you guess how old the birthday boy is turning? The clue is on the front of the cake, the first tier.

By the way, I've completely altered the name on the cake to preserve the anonymity of the recipient.

We hope he liked his cake. :)