Baking for My Son's Birthday Party: Tips and Tricks

[Kitchen Diva]

Carolyn, you have an adorable family- and how creative are you? Little miss cake decorating diva!

I'm making a 6 layer Princess castle for my niece's party this weekend. Here is a link to what the cake will (should) look like when I'm done: http://jas.familyfun.go.com/recipefinder/display?id=50200

I'll take a picture of it when I'm done. I pray it turns out- I've never done anything fancier than a 3 layered checkerboard cake (when you cut it open, there are two colors of cake that make a checkerboard pattern)

 

[jrstephens]

I was thinking about this, the one in the upper left:

http://cgi.ebay.com/BACKYARDIGANS-Pablo-Uniqua-Birthday-Cake-Topper-Set_W0QQitemZ120251754477QQihZ002QQcategoryZ46281QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Thanks for all the help! We will have to swap pictures of our finished cakes!

That is cute! I saw one kind of like that at a party not too long ago, just a different theme.

We will definitely have to swap pics!! And we are so close togethen on when the birthdays are. Luke's party will be on his actual birthday since July 19th is on a Saturday. I love getting to have them on the day! If we do not have them on the day, we usually go out for pizza and invite family to go with us on the actual day.

I plan to get the Wilton book this weekend. When I get to work on Monday (I have DSL there) I will scan and post the cupcakes in it for you to see.

 

[jbachen]

That would be awesome, Jennifer, thanks!So how old is Luke going to be? Mine will be 3...

 

[Jennie4PC]

Kacey
That is a way cute cake wish I saw that for my DD's bday. I think I could have managed that.

 

[jrstephens]

That would be awesome, Jennifer, thanks!

So how old is Luke going to be? Mine will be 3...

He will be 4.

 

[jrstephens]

I ended up not getting the Wilton book. It was $11!!! And I could not make myself pay that for a catalog to order out of, ha!!! Especially when that would almost pay for the cake pan, ha!!! And they have all the stuff online to order. I may end up getting it though b/c it had icing recipes and told you what colors to use for the cupcakes and lots of stuff on fondant and different tips and things. I am going to keep trying to find them somewhere online.

 

[Jennie4PC]

I made a few cakes for my friends DD's birthdays. I did copy the ideas off here but I just wanted to show you.

Also dont know if I put this one on here but this was for my DD's 1st birthday

 

[AnnieBee]

Cute cakes Jennie! The frog is just adorable, my DS would just love it! If I'm remembering, that was a Linda cake, right?!

Here are my latest creations! I am having a great time right now taking a cake decorating class, and I'm just a little bit proud of myself!

 

[Jennie4PC]

Those are awsome cupcakes you did a great job. When I move to a busier city I want to take some cake decorating classes.
Yes the frog was from Linda's post.
Also the frosting on the turtle looks kind of sad cause I had it a bit to runny and it was out in the 100 degree heat wich didnt help it much at all.

 

[AnnieBee]

Thanks! BTW, I thought the turtle was pretty cute too, and I guessed that the droops were due to heat . Here's a tip about frosting and heat I learned in my class. If you use crisco instead of butter it will hold up way better to heat and humidity. If you want frosting that looks and tastes good, you can use a mixture, and also you can use a powdered butter flavouring too. It just about kills me to put crisco in frosting, but it really does help for decorating! If you want a recipe I can find one to post, otherwise you can just start by substituting a bit of crisco for some of the butter. I think there is a recipe on the wilton web-site too. HTH!

 

[Jennie4PC]

Thanks Annie that is great information especially since I will be doing another party I am sure outside. 2 of my kids bdays are in Jan the other one is July.

 

[rebeccastt]

Annie,
Those cupcakes are so cute! I'm learning to make those flowers in my cake decorating class right now too. What color(s) did you use to make the green? The combination of the green and white/yellow looks great!Here are the cupcakes I made for my mom, mother-in-law, and sisters-in-law for Mother's Day. Wilton makes really cute cupcake boxes that have a see-through top window for transportation/gift giving that I put them in. They were a hit!

 

[AnnieBee]

Hey Rebecca, those cupcakes are really cute too! Which tip did you use for the leaves? Giving the cupcakes in boxes is a great idea. I don't have ANY family anywhere near here, but my church had a ladies lunch on Saturday, so I made mine for that. I borrowed a Wilton cup-cake stand from a friend, which was so cool, it looked so much nicer than just putting them on a flat plate (and no, I don't have any tiered SA pieces!! LOL!). The colours I use are AmeriColor "soft gel paste food color". They are more gel than paste though! The green was made with a lot of lemon yellow (#107) and a little royal blue (#102). I got them through the teacher of my class, so I'm not sure where else you can buy them. They are nice to work with though. The green was to match the theme colours of the lunch, which were the bright green and hot pink!! We had a spring garden theme, it was really fun!!

So what course are you taking? Definately post more pictures, I love seeing everyones work.

 

[Jennie4PC]

We had someone bring cupcakes to a church thing once and she had them in the chillzane. They looked really nice in there.

 

[rebeccastt]

Hey Rebecca, those cupcakes are really cute too! Which tip did you use for the leaves?
So what course are you taking? Definately post more pictures, I love seeing everyones work.

I used tip #352 for the leaves.

I am taking Wilton's Course 2 through Michaels. My first class in Course 2 was last Thursday. We learned how to make the mums. ) It has been really fun!

 

[AnnieBee]

Rebecca,

I love the 352 tip! I almost did the wilton courses, but the one I am doing is through a local vocational school that also does adult ed. and some fun courses too. It is an 8 week course, and I think we cover wilton 1 and 2 and maybe a bit more. We did the roses/pansies/mums with royal icing last week. I had a hard time with the mums, they look more like sea anemones!! I hope you are taking pictures of what you do, I'd love to see them. My second week we did baby booties, clowns and christmas trees (all on one cake!) but about 5 minutes after I got home the cake slid off my cake carrier base and as I tried to save, it it got smooshed into the back of one of my kitchen chairs. It was completely destroyed. It was pretty funny, but I just couldn't believe that all my hard work was gone just like that!! And I was just about to get my camera to take a picture... At least it wasn't for someones birthday or something like that!

 

[Teresa Lynn]

Annie, you're making me nervous Tomorrow our son commits and signs to the University of Houston which requires a party at school afterwardsSince he is going to be on the track team I'm making a sheet cake with a red border and bought a round cake pan (not like a regular pan) but the 2 halves will make a ball I will be frosting it gray for a shot put.I will do cupcakes and form them in a circle to make a discus. now, I can just see my shotput rolling off the middle of the cake!! I will level it a little and secure it with skewers.

 

[AnnieBee]

Teresa, you're hilarious! It sounds as though it will be an awesome cake! I'm sure the shot put will NOT roll off! The skewers sound like a good idea though! My biggest problem was that my cake was on a round cutting board that was on the base of my cake carrier, and there was not much friction to stop it from sliding right off.

Got to run... Good luck with your cake, and show us some pictures!

 

[Teresa Lynn]

Here is the picture of the cake I made for my son today.
He will be throwing shotput and discus for the University of Houston.

 

[Jennie4PC]

Teresa,
That cake looks nice. You did a great job on it. Also congrats on your son signing at University of Houston.

 

[AnnieBee]

Teresa, your cake came out so well, it looks amazing! You did a great job with it, and it looks as though it stayed intact - no rolling shotputs! I hope your son enjoyed his celebration, you must be really proud of and excited for him .

 

[lissahope26]

Here is the picture of the cake I made for my son today.
He will be throwing shotput and discus for the University of Houston.


View attachment 11085

You did an awesome job!!!!!!!

 

[KellyTheChef]

Here is the picture of the cake I made for my son today.
He will be throwing shotput and discus for the University of Houston.


View attachment 11085

Teresa...

That came out nice!!

Way to go!

 

[KellyTheChef]

I keep forgetting to post Evan's birthday cake that I made. It's a 12 inch cake made in the family skillet, then I covered it in green fondant for the "grass" and painted on the road using food coloring paste mixed in water...

 

[Teresa Lynn]

Yes, my oldest son was driving and I held it, it was pouring rain & windy so the foil smushed down on it a little but it arrived ok

I messed up on the spacing betweent he U & the H but it was hardly noticeable

 

[nicki25]

Has anyone ever baked a cake early and then freezed it before icing the cake?? I have heard that it makes icing easier. How do you package it to freeze the cake??? I need to make a cake today and then it will be iced for Saturday afternoon.

 

[KellyTheChef]

Nicki~

Allow the cake to cool, then wrap securely in saran wrap and freeze on a flat surface (like a sheet pan) I actually think cakes normally taste BETTER after being frozen! My neighbor (like a mom to me) does this and then frosts them straight from the freezer so she doesn't get too many crumbs.

 

[nicki25]

Thanks for the info. I am sure it will help!!!

 

[chefsteph07]

Kelly, that's a GREAT cake!!!
Wish I were so talented!

 

[Kitchen Diva]

I keep forgetting to post Evan's birthday cake that I made. It's a 12 inch cake made in the family skillet, then I covered it in green fondant for the "grass" and painted on the road using food coloring paste mixed in water...

Nice cake!

 

[pamperedlinda]

Good job Kelly!

 

[pamperedlinda]

Anyone have a cute cake design for a baseball theme? I'm doing cakes for the end of season party for my son's baseball team next weekend. I'm decorating cupcakes to look like baseballs for the kids with their number on them and I bought the round ball cake pan to do a baseball for the coaches. I need more cake for the moms and dads and brothers and sisters who will probably be there. I was thinking that I'd do a buch more baseball cupcakes for everyone, but a themed cake would be cute too...any ideas? I'm heading over the coolest cakes website to see what they have too.

 

[rebeccastt]

Here's a cute one from Wilton. The baseball jersey looks authentic and the little pieces added really makes it look cute, IMO.

Baseball Jersey

 

[Teresa Lynn]

the Wilton ball pan was perfect for my son's shot put cake. It had great directions for a baseball. You could put it on a sheet cake like I did to serve more people.

 

[pamperedlinda]

Here's a cute one from Wilton. The baseball jersey looks authentic and the little pieces added really makes it look cute, IMO.

Baseball Jersey

That's cute, but I don't want to butcher our jersey by trying to replicate it. Plus I don't have time to get the pan.

 

[Kitchen Diva]

too bad you can't make a dugout, or a baseball glove...

 

[pamperedlinda]

I saw a baseball glove on the coolest cakes website, it didn't look too hard.

 

[Teresa Lynn]

I made a glove once with a round cake, frosted twinkies, licorice string and a snowball cake in the middle (just piped a little red for stitching over the coconut)

 

[fikibiff]

Here is my latest cake. I found it on-line somewhere. The cookie crumbs kept falling off of the grill sides.

 

[pamperedlinda]

That is too adorable! details please....

I love it when I see this thread pop back up!

 

[vwpamperedchef]

How adorable!! yes, please share!!

 

[lacychef]

That is very cute!

 

[cewcooks]

That is the most adorable cake I have ever seen! Is the cheese butterscotch icing and what type of icing did you use for the hot dogs?

 

[AnnieBee]

That's awesome! And I love the santuko knife cover in the picture too - for cutting the cake?

 

[KellyTheChef]

Cool cake! DETAILS!!!!

 

[Jennie4PC]

That is such a cute cake. I agree you cant post a pic with out telling us how it is done.

 

[fikibiff]

Thanks for all the compliments!:blushing:

OK, here are the details. I used 2 8" round yellow cakes for the bottom and 2 10" chocolate rounds for the "grill" part.

I stacked and frosted the bottom layers on our round SA platter - I use my mom's frosting recipe for almost everything. I added the grill legs and grass - which I realized later that I should have done very last to avoid the cookie crumbs in it.

I used our food chopper to smash up a ton of fudge Oreos. Next I stacked and frosted the grill layers on a cutting board. As soon as I had the brown frosting on it, I started pressing the cookie crumbs into the sides and top with a spoon. Once that was all covered, I pushed 4 straws into the bottom layers and snipped them off to just a little below the frosting layer. Then I wrapped a piece of cardboard in aluminum foil and set it on top of the cake/straws. I would recommend dowels if you are doing more layers than this, but for this the straws worked fine, and, I had them on hand.

After that I used our lift and serve plastic things (can't remember if they are really called that) to lift the grill layer off the cutting board and put it on the aluminum foil/cardboard. If I did this cake again, I would have just put the grill part on the cardboard to begin with and then frosted, crumbed, and moved the whole thing, but live and learn.

Anyway, then I had to go to the store because I didn't have enough left over cake pieces (because I ate them) to make the burgers and hot dogs and I didn't want to make a whole other cake. I bought some round shortcakes and trimmed them into hamburger shapes and cut a Suzie Q into strips for the hot dog. I used canned vanilla frosting that I tinted to the hot dog, hamburger, and cheese colors and microwaved it until it was runny. I poured the frosting over the various "pieces of meat" and let them cool/dry. While they were drying, I piped the grill grate on and the lettering - I suck at piping as you can see by the lettering. Then I moved the meat onto the grill and used a paint brush and black food coloring to make the grill lines.

I did use the santuko to cut it. I like using it cuz it's long and wide enough to pick up pieces of cake for serving.

So, I don't know if you wanted that much detail, but there it is.

 

[pamperedlinda]

Thanks Niki!

A couple of questions:

1) will you share your mom's recipe for frosting?
2) what is a Suzie Q?

Linda

 

[KellyTheChef]

Linda~

They are chocolate snack cakes with vanilla filling.....

 

[smspamperedchef]

So Cool! I Need To Get Into Doing Those!!!