L and E Birthday Cakes 2012

Both of my girlies celebrate their birthdays in January, so we eat a lot of cake at the beginning of the year. Now, I am NOT a professional baker. I usually try to keep things simple but try to add touches that make the cakes special for them. I always use a simple box mix (of the birthday girl's preferred flavor), and we usually try to bake it together if time allows. However, I usually do the decorating on my own. Since I don't like canned frosting, I make this 5-Minute Buttercream Frosting. It takes just a few minutes, and it tastes sooooo good! Then, I make the frosting pretty by adding food coloring. (I prefer to use Wilton Food Coloring.) For decorations, I get sparkly number candles from Target and print out character images from the internet to use as toppers. I just print the images on cardstock, cut out and tape some toothpicks to the back. It's simple but the girls think it is so cool.

They always get to choose a theme, and I do my best to make it happen. In the past I've made cakes to go along with the following themes: Castle, Fancy Nancy Explorer Extraordinaire, TinkerBell, and Sleeping Beauty. This year, I'm adding Barbie & The Three Musketeers and Rapunzel to the list.

Lucie requested a Barbie and the Three Musketeers cake for her birthday. I recreated this Barbie Wallpaper image on a simple round layer cake. I printed the image on cardstock and cut out Barbie, the Three Musketeers and the castle separately to make cake toppers. Then, I created a "road" out of graham cracker crumbs for the road.

Ella requested a Rapunzel (aka Tangled) cake for her birthday. Originally, I wanted to make a lantern cake, but then reality set in. I just didn't have time to create something that elaborate. So, I decided to recreate the gondola scene. I used this image of Flynn, Rapunzel and Maximus in the gondola and this image of the kingdom island for the background. However, I'm a bit of a stickler for authenticity. Maximus was not in the gondola, so I cut him out. I made the water out of blue and white frosting and added some graham cracker crumbs around the island in the background.

The cakes were easy enough to make, but I still managed to get one of the best compliments from Ella: "You're the best mom in the world!"