Birthday Cakes

Both of my kids were born in August. They are almost two years apart; only nine days separates their birthdays. Now, my oldest is only three, and the youngest one, so I haven't had a lot of time with the two of them. So far, we have had a birthday party for each of them, instead of combining. One of the reasons this has happened is each set of grandparents live in different locations. Before my son was born, we had two first birthdays for my daughter because we celebrated with my parents first, and then with my inlaws.

This year, we celebrated my son's birthday at home with my inlaws. It was his birthday, but with a minor component being devoted to my daughter. When her birthday came around nine days later, we were visiting my parents, and we celebrated her birthday, with a minor component devoted to my son.

So, I made a birthday cake for each occasion.

For my son's first birthday party, I made Lego cakes. This year, I opted for a cake mix, instead of making the cake from scratch. I made all of my daughter's previous birthday cakes and cupcakes from scratch, and they turned out well. I was just too busy this year. I used the President's Choice Organics chocolate cake mix. It turned out pretty good. The colours for the Lego blocks were not traditional because I only had a set of neon food colouring at home, hence the bright green, blue, "red" and orange.

I followed the idea and instructions from the Betty Crocker site, using marshmallows for the pegs. I even did a crumb coating before finishing off the icing. It turned out well.

For weeks prior to her birthday, my daughter wanted a Tinkerbell cake. I was going to modify a cake using an Esmerelda pan. Then, my daughter decided she wanted a Dora cake. I rented a pan from Bulk Barn for $2 (this is the daily rental). I made a cake, using the President's Choice Organics vanilla mix this time. I made the cake a few days in advance, and kept it in the fridge. The pan also came with decorating instructions, so I used these as a guideline for icing the cake.

The cake ended up looking really good. My husband had been doubtful, having seen the cake undecorated. I guess he didn't think I could pull it off. The main issue was that I was short of star tips for the icing bags, and I didn't have couplers on the bags, which would have enabled me to quickly switch between different icing colours. I had to refill new bags, and use the same star tip with a new colour. The icing process took a few hours. If I had couplers on my icing bags, it probably would have cut the time in half.

My daughter loved the cake. She often refers to it as Dora's birthday instead of hers because we did have a cake with Dora on it.

If icing cakes is something you enjoy doing, I encourage you to try it for your next special birthday. As I mentioned, Bulk Barn rents pans for $2 a day. They usually come with the instructions on how to decorated the cake. Many of the supplies you would need are also available at Bulk Barn. I think Michaels probably has stuff too. Michaels actually offers cake decorating classes at their stores, if you are interested.

Oh, last year, for my daughter's second birthday, I made butterfly cupcakes. You cut off the tops of the cupcakes, cut them in half and flip them, rounded parts inward, to make wings. I decorated the wings with icing and use gummy worms and jujubes for the bodies. You can use string licorice for the antennae. Alternately, you can make ladybug cupcakes by not flipping the cut tops. Google to find pictures of examples. Some are pretty cute.