Some things changed (which kids cake I messed up this year), and some things stayed the same (my kids love sugar).
The Boy is still obsessed with The Simpsons, and he wanted another Simpsons cake. I found online a cake with a photo of Homer reaching up on the cake for doughnuts (homemade of course), but we swapped it out for Timbits.
I bought a couple of 6 inch cake pans so I could get good height on the cake without it being super huge. I made the cake and icing from scratch, printed the Homer photo, and sent The Mister to Timmy's for the Timbits.
It came together perfectly, into a super cute cake:
The Boy loved it; he and his sister had plenty of sugar, and everyone was happy.
Recipes I used :
A month later it was The Girls turn and I am not ashamed to admit, I was worn out. When she (finally!) decided on a candy cake, I decided to go the easy route and use not only box cake mix but also store bought frosting.
I was going to make a Pinata cake full of candy, so I knew it had to be assembled the day of her birthday so the candy inside wouldn't go all gross. I baked the 4 layers of cake the night before and was up nice and early to knock the cake out of the park.
Pretty much right away I realized that a 4 layer, 9 inch cake was going to be way bigger than we needed, so I changed it to 3 layers. Then to make sure I had plenty of room for the candy I cut a very large hole in the middle layer. Too big, I would realize later. As soon as I started frosting the bottom and middle layers together, I realized I probably hadn't bought enough frosting.
I kept plugging along, trying to frost sparingly to make sure I had enough frosting left for the outside, but it sure didn't look good.
I mean, it really didn't look good.
In addition to the tubs of white frosting I'd also bought a can of frosting with a variety of nozzles you could use to do your final decorating. I wasn't going to be able to save that for the decorating, I was going to need it to try to frost the cake.
The spray can of frosting was A PIECE OF GARBAGE. It was hissing and spitting and would randomly stop dispensing frosting and just shoot out air. The cake looked bad before; now it looked hideous.
I was hysterical with laughter by this time - what good would getting frustrated and upset do? The cake looked terrible and I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed so hard I cried. Eventually I pulled myself together and smoothed the pink frosting into the white and it just barely covered the whole cake. Almost.
The good thing about 6 year olds is that if their cake is covered in candy, they don't give a hoot what it looks like.
After we ate some cake, (sooooo sweet) I told The Mister that he's in charge of birthday cakes in 2021. Mom needs a break.
