The Mystery Machine! (cake)

Blowing Out the Candles!

It's very hard to tell from the pictures, but the other things placed on the cake are a spooky tree (made of chocolate twizzlers) and several fruit roll up ghosts.  As always, not really like I pictured it, but it could have been worse. 

Birthday fun

From last weekend: Leanna and Justin in their birthday finery!  The guests, the cakes, waiting to blow out the candles.  I think almost everyone had a good time and it was a nice night out. 

The cake

Those are swedish fish in the sea, pretzel rod oars, boat trim and as the body of the cannon, root beer barrels for barrels, and whoppers for cannon balls and also as part of the cannon. I just stuck the umbrella in last minute to add color. The treasure chest is cake. I meant to make better sails, but last minute it ended up being plain notebook paper. The pirate is from Timothy's birthday present.

I love the stubble on him!

I'm not proud of this cake, which is really dissapointing because I did want to make everything very special for Timothy since he's been looking forward to this birthday. I know, at four, it's not a huge deal to him if his cake isn't awe inspiring. But it was very frustrating for me because this is a simple cake and it should have been much better. I was just out of time and out of patience at this point. Things didn't work out the way they were supposed to the day before and I was out later than I intended the night before, the kids kept waking up one by one that night, and it just didn't go as planned. The day of the party I was still cleaning like crazy and trying to decorate, wrap the last couple presents, finish the cake, do dishes, bathe all four kids, temporarily move homeschooling supplies, bring down presents and supplies.........just all sorts of things, most of which should have been finished the day before.

I can no longer use cake mixes to make birthday(or any other kind of!) cakes. Because of Jacob's allergies I have to do homemade. (Stupid soy!) Luckily, I think the cake tasted great (I was worried). But it does take longer this way. I honestly feel like making this cake again, not even on a birthday, just to do it justice!

Birthday Cake

It's a purse for Laura, not my best work at all. My apologies for that Laura. I didn't know we were doing the party tonight until last night and I had other stuff planned for today. So I didn't spend as much time on it as I would have liked, and I didn't get a chance to do the proper colors and designs. I was rushed and at the end I had Jacob hanging on my arm.
I really need one of those flat sheets to put cakes on. Or two! I have no idea where you would get them from though?? Let me tell you, I've been loving those pampered chef icing containers my Mother-in-law got me!!
But I do have to say, if you're a fan of chocolate, the iceing was awesome! I added cocoa powder and it was delicious!!

Birthday Cake

That reads: Jacob 2!

not Jacob 21 (since someone asked me)

I later had to give him new eyes since the little stinker ate the M&M eyes right off his cake!

Jacob is always calling out, bird! or bee! when we're outside. An ant will be crawling by on the sidewalk and he'll run over and crouch down to watch, yelling over and over, "Bee! Bee! Bee!" All insects are bees to him. It seemed to have just the right amount of cuteness to work and since it wasn't overly complicated, a bee cake it was!

This one was actually pretty easy to make. Though I still have yet to figure out how to stop the cake from crumbling into the iceing when I spread it. The black iceing I bought, after reading numberous recommendations to do so on the interwebs. Apparently it's impossible to make black iceing with food coloring without making it get too bitter. The antenae are black liccorice and the tail is just iceing. The wings are slices of cake.

Cakes!

The top view

The iceing looked more purple in person, when I mixed it, it was very purple. Later I looked at it and it looked a little gray.

Leanna's teaparty cake-the teacups have green in them for Mint tea, Leanna's favorite kind!

That's supposed to be a five, not an "S", but other than that, this one was easy and came out great!

They never come out quite how I envision them, but given the amount of time and the tools and knowledge I have (none), I think I do ok.

For the record, it's well known that I collect teapots. This cake was right for Leanna though because every week, at least once, she requests a teaparty. I do not usually oblige. One of these days I will have to let her host a real teaparty. So although I was unable to make her the cake she requested-a Mayan pyramid cake with flamingo dancers-a teapot with teacups seemed an acceptable subsitute. (well, eventually. It took a while to get over the dissapointment) The teacups are edible too (cupcakes).