Let Them Eat Cake

Cake is kind of a big deal in our family... birthday cakes are a labor of love, and while not every year has its masterpiece (we have to be realistic here, some years it is all I can do to present the birthday boy with a full belly and a clean face; forget about beautifully wrapped presents and gorgeous cakes) we do like to have fun with our cakes.

I thought it would be fun to share a few of our birthday cakes from the last year or two!

Front Loader Cake (as per the then-2 year old's request)

Noah's Ark Cake

The Noah's Ark cake was made with Marissa's help; it is covered in delicious chocolate marshmallow fondant that we made (painful, I don't particularly recommend it).  The animals are made of fondant as well.  We were going to make tons of animals in various colors, but it took so long that we called it good here.  Marissa used dye and a paintbrush and painted lines to look like boards on the ark.

Barbie cake made by Marissa for our sister Cara's 20th birthday- to commemorate the barbie cake Marissa made when Cara was... 7 or so.

Simple layer cake with paper bunting sewed together and glued on bamboo skewers.

My 4 year old's Airplane Cake.

I was so glad that a) Marissa helped me with this cake, and b) that we started it the night before.  Marissa frosted the cake with 3 different colors to give the fluffy sky/cloud look, and I made the wings, windows, and banner out of gum paste, and let those dry overnight.  We formed the body of the plane (also the night before) out of rice krispy treats.  We used store bought fondant to cover the body of the plane and the wings (as well as add all the decoration) the following day.  The wings were all attached with toothpicks.

Pretty pleased with his airplane cake!

My birthday cake!

I take no credit for this cake whatsoever; except that it was made (by Marissa) for my birthday!  It's been 8 years since Marissa and I have been together on my birthday, so it was an extra special treat!  The flowers were made of fondant.  Also, this cake turned out to be one of my favorite cake flavors so far- pink lemonade cake with lemon-almond buttercream frosting.  Whoa!  So good.

For those of you who don't know, my sister Marissa is one of the "Homebodies" but has been on hiatus from blogging to do important things like finishing school and internships, traveling the world, working full time, and now growing a tiny human being!  >excited squeal!<  So perhaps we'll see her back here in the future (maybe I can prevail upon her to share more of her own cake masterpieces she is so talented at- who knows!) if we're lucky.

So- back to cake... what traditions do you have for birthday cakes?  Birthday child gets to pick?  Costco cake?  Ice cream cake?  Brownies and ice cream? Themed cakes?  Let me know in the comments!