Lego Mini-figure Cake

Tristan knew exactly what he wanted as his birthday cake this year. He has been so engrossed in Legos for the last three years and recently began creating Lego "videos" (stop motion photography) so it came as no surprise when he blurted out his wishes at the dinner table one night. "I want a Lego Mini figure cake! But I want the original face. No eyebrows."

"How odd," I thought, "for him to be specific about the eyebrows." But, that's Tristan. And a mini-figure cake he got! He even put together one for me with the eyes (no eyebrows), pants and shirt he wanted out of his Lego pieces. Lucky for me, he wanted a very basic "original looking" Lego man.

Tristan told me about this cake well in advance. I thought about it well in advance...then forgot about it for a couple of weeks. It's a mini-figure...how hard could it be?

I scanned for cakes having anything to do with Lego. I found a black and white drawing of a mini-figure that I downloaded and enlarge to a 8x10 size. I would use it as a template to cut out the cake pieces so at least our Lego guy would be proportional.

A couple days before his birthday, I baked a 13x9 cake and cut out the pieces using my "template". I didn't mind that the template was only 8x10. The Lego minifigure isn't flat so I planned to use some cake "scraps" to give him bulk where he needed it - mainly his head and his toes. Besides, that's PLENTY of cake to eat. The less cake we had left over, the better.

I found out the morning before his birthday as I was putting it together and trying to ice it that I had not quite planned out the creation of this cake enough.

Will emailed asking how the cake was coming along. "The cake looks like crap," was all I said about it. Icing was glopping everywhere and would NOT make a nice edge. And since I had to cut the cake so much, there were crumbs EVERYWHERE! I had only gotten the legs iced when I KNEW this was not going to work. I had to resort to the marshmallow fondant and I had to do it in a hurry! I had bought 2 bags of marshmallows just in case this happened and luckily, Tia (the marshmallow disposal system) hadn't found them. I didn't mind doing the marshmallow fondant (and actually had a sneaking suspicion it would look a lot better with fondant) but I really hoped I could get it done quickly with icing.

I had just enough time to make the fondant and put it in the fridge to rest before I had to leave to get the kids from school.

That afternoon I set to work covering the cake with fondant. The arms were wrapped separately and set next to the rest of the cake. The hands were made from rectangles of fondant that were shaped around a bottle then secured with a toothpick to the arms. It wasn't long before the kids knew what a ghost mini-figure would look like (no color).

That evening, I started painting the cake. Tristan had asked for basic colors (blue, red and of course, Lego man yellow). I wasn't too worried at this point about how he would look. The cake was coming along beautifully. The only thing that worried me was the face. It had to look perfect. I decided to make it using scraps of fondant colored black.

The areas where the mini-figure's waist and neck were looked pretty rough (the seams where the pants and shirt met and the head and shirt met) so I created a belt (and buckle) for the waist and a scarf for the neck area.

I was pretty pleased with the final product - especially considering the mess I started out with. Tristan was thrilled with the results, and that's what really mattered the most.

Tiki Man Cake

Last minute cake ideas usually do NOT turn out well. However, this one most certainly did. My son, now 17, decided he wanted to have several friends over for a bonfire for his birthday. No problem! We had the fire pit, could order pizzas, have a cooler full of drinks...but what about the cake? Well, the bonfire led to the Tiki idea. Tiki torches, oil lamps, etc (no grass skirts, though).

This guy was made from a 13x9"cake (I prefer using my Air Bake pan). Once the cake was baked, he took under an hour to decorate. I've posted some photos of the decorating process below.

1. Once your cake has baked and cooled, round it out by trimming the upper edges forming the cake into a half log shape. Place it on your serving board. (I usually just use my cake carrier for this since that's it's final resting spot)
2. Ice the cake completely with chocolate icing. You don't have to worry too much about getting icing on your surface. It will be covered up later. Keep your strokes going vertical - to somewhat resemble tree bark.
3. Use a toothpick, knife, chopstick or whatever you have handy to trace the design of your tiki man's face. Don't worry about adding details at this point. You just want to be sure you have the basic design centered on the cake surface.
4. Now comes the fun part - coloring it in! Try to stay in the lines. Fill in all your base colors first, then do your outlining. The icing colors were made with a couple cans of vanilla icing and neon food coloring.
5. The teeth were made with marshmallow fondant. I rolled out a sheet, cut out 2 strips and indented them to look like teeth.
6. Continue coloring in the areas and add details (like the zig-zagging and the headband feathers).

The final touch was the nose - made of tootsie rolls. The tootsie rolls (about 6 minis) were warmed in the microwave and molded into 3 balls (2 small and one large). The large ball was rolled into a cone shape and the smaller balls were attached to either side.

The entire base of the cake was surrounded with graham cracker crumbs to resemble sand.
And there you have it! A quick, easy (and Yummy) last minute Tiki Man birthday cake!

Nintendo Super Mario Mushroom Cake

Having kids usually means having video games and having video games usually means "Super Mario" and "Nintendo" are common household words. So it came as no suprise when my son came up to me before his 10th birthday, showed me his little mushroom shaped tin of sour candies, and told me "This is what I want my birthday cake to be!" Noooo Problem! What better use of my Betty Crocker Bake N' Fill pan than a mushroom!

Once my cake was baked and cooled, placed it on a round cake board (cut down to size) and set it on top of a wedding cake stand. I coated the cake in a (generous) layer of icing and smoothed marshmallow fondant over the top, tucking it in underneath.

The green was painted on with a mixture of food coloring gel and vanilla extract. The 5 large round circles were cut out of marshmallow fondant and placed on the cake.

To cover the wedding cake tower, I cut out a strip of paper, drew the eyes on it, and surrounded the base of the cake, taping it closed.

Unicorn Cake

Tia has a thing for unicorns this year. Unicorn this and unicorn that. "Find a story about unicorns!" Guess what...she wanted a UNICORN CAKE! So she got one...

I knew I didn't want to end up with a unicorn with a non-existent muzzle like the Prancing Pony Cake, but I needn't have worried. I found inspiration in the party decor!

I scanned the catalog page, enlarged it, and used the picture as a template for cutting out the unicorn's head.

The unicorn cake is a 2 layer cake carved from a single 9x13 cake (I used Pillsbury white cake mix). This could also be turned into a horse cake - simply leave off the horn!

1. I first cut out the head, keeping the cut out section as far to one side as possible (since the remaining cake would form the neck and base, supporting the head). The ear should also be part of this piece. The head piece was then carved and rounded to resemble a unicorn head. It doesn't need to be very detailed. Icing will help to round out most of the cut edges and can also be used to add details later.
2. With the remaining cake, shape the neck area. You need to be sure to keep a large enough piece of cake to go beneath the head, supporting it and creating a 2-layer cake section. I placed the head template on the cake and cut around it adding the neck as I went so the top and left sides of the cake would match the head piece perfectly.
3. You can't see it in the photo, but I also made a second ear part of this base piece. It sits more forward on the head than the first ear and helps to support the horn.
4. Place the base piece onto your serving plate and cover completely with icing. I used canned Pillsbury vanilla icing.
5. Place the head piece on top of the base piece and arrange it toward the top left of the cake aligning the top of the head and the left side of the head.
6. Ice the top layer and all the sides. Your cake should now be completely covered in icing. If you like, you can make a icing border along the base. It's only needed at the bottom of the neck and along the left side of the cake. The rest will be covered in icing from the mane.
7. Color a can of vanilla icing pink. Place it in a decorating bag with a large star tip and pipe on the mane. Start at the base of the cake and work your way up. Bring the mane up over the forehead in curls.
8. Use a small butter knife or spatula to spread a little icing in the ear.
9. I drew on the eye with black decorating gel and painted in the iris with blue food coloring gel (slightly watered down).
10. For the nose, I made an indent in the icing and the same blue color used on the eye was swiped on with a paintbrush just at the top of the nostril.
11. The unicorn's horn was made from marshmallow fondant. I mixed up a batch, rolled it into a long rope with a tapered end and twisted it around half of a bamboo skewer. Start at the end of the skewer with the tapered end and twist keeping the fondant tightly wrapped until you run out of fondant or get to the middle of the skewer - whichever comes first. The entire horn was then dusted with silver Pearl Dust - edible metallic decorating powder.
12. Insert the uncovered end of the skewer into the unicorn's head just above the ear on the bottom layer but as close to the seam between the cake layer as possible. The horn is heavy. The bottom ear, the length of the skewer and the weight of the top layer of cake all help to hold the horn in place.