It's a Pirate's Life For Me

So this cake was FOREVER ago.......as are almost all the cakes I do when finally posted. The summer was really crazy this year. Not so much more then any other, but this summer was the last "free" summer my baby had and I think I was a mixture of "we have to make it fun" and "what the snufflupagus am I going to do with my life once they are all in school?"

Since I was thinking about myself and trying to entertain the troops - I just let this blog slide on by. Now here I am - almost 8 weeks into school - finally getting out of my pity party funk and trying to do a little catch up.

Like a Pirate ship - Let's set sail.......

Come on now - you HAD to expect something dorky like that - it is ME here!!

This cake was for my good friends son, Kai. He was all piratey about things this year. I did a little search on line and found that there are TONS of pirate cakes and variations of pirates themselves. Kai was pretty open ended so we did a nice cake that he could use for a party at his house with his parents and adult friends..........then his mom complimented the cake with cupcakes that looked like pirates for his actual birthday party.

The cake is all done in buttercream for the outside planking. I just iced it and then took a straight edge and traced in the lines to represent wood planks.

All of the "extra" pieces are done in fondant - though when I did this a second time I did the extras in gumpaste so that they would dry faster.

And while these are NOT edible - I was kinda tickled by my creativeness and my execution on these sails. Totally cute right? I used some stamping paper (because it is thicker) and then some wood skewers for Kabobs. I inked the skewers a brown to match the ship - then inked the edges of the paper to give the sails a more fabric look and fraying weathered texture. So cute!

The water is a mixture. I rolled out blue fondant, but then piped on blue buttercream in a swirl type fashion to make it look like the ship were hitting breakers in the waves.

This cake was all Chocolate Chocolate Chip with a Vanilla buttercream that was tinted brown (so it is not chocolate icing). The fondant was all Vanilla flavored.

It turned out so cute that when I showed a pic to a mom on our summer swim team she asked me to do one for her pirate. I will post that soon just for comparison sake!

Sponge Bob Revisited

Remember the tractor cake? If so then you probably remember the picture you see here. Tractor wheels was the point to this picture.........but at the end of the tractor wheels there was left over RKT (rice krispy treats). My kids eat a lot of sweet treats if I leave them laying about. To try to keep that from happening I toss a lot of the scrap stuff into the trash. But I will be honest - that is SOOOOO hard to do sometimes because we are always taught not to be wasteful. On this particular day I also had a Sponge Bob cake to do - so I decided to use some of the extra RKT to fashion the arms and legs. Let them dry for a day with the tractor wheels and voila.....

This is technically my 3rd Sponge Bob cake. The very first was years and years ago for my almost 10 years old sons 3rd birthday. This cake is the 2nd Sponge Bob made with a fondant cover. I am just about ready to do Sponge Bob without looking at a picture anymore. ;o)

Still - no matter how many times you do the same thing - there is always something new and different you can bring into the mix. For this cake it was obviously the arms and legs made from RKT. I heard that the Birthday Boy LOVED the cake. We are on swim team with them and he came up to me the other day (this is months after the birthday) and said, "I am planning my birthday cake". Always fun to hear!!

This cake was Chocolate (if I am remembering right - geez o I should not wait so long to post things!) - Vanilla Buttercream icing and a Vanilla Fondant. Most of all it was loved and enjoyed!

More Girl Scouts!

Here is a Girl Scout Bridging cake that was used for MY Girl Scout troop this year. I love LOVE love my Girl Scouts. When Andersen joined GS's in 3rd grade I went to the registration meeting with her. My goal was NOT to sign up as the leader. I had heard ahead of time that there already was a leader so I figured I was good and there wasn't any big need to scan the room ahead of time and figure out what things were big enough to hide under if they asked for volunteers. We all know I have a Volunteer problem.......although we were just moved into a new town and no one knew us and before leaving I had promised myself that I would enter a 12 Step Volunteer Program.

There we are filling out paperwork - almost to the end of the meeting and the GS Council coordinator says, "Well the troop leader that has this group has decided she only wants to lead 4th & 5th grade. So in order for this troop to happen we will need parents to lead this group". Immediately I started an inner mantra of "I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER. I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER. I WILL NOT VOLUNTEER." And it worked - some other woman said she would lead it.........only.......I had been listening to that woman through the meeting and knew she was NOT a parent I would want leading my daughter anywhere. She was pretty much Miss Inappropriate Universe winner for the area. I won't even waste time writing out some of the things she talked about - just know they were no empowering to little girls in anyway. Then the GS Council person said "Great"........then I raised my hand and said I would "co" to keep things empowered for young girls. Fortunately the leader was not only not appropriate - she also wasn't committed or reliable. By the time the meeting ended she had quit as leader (no I didn't do anything) - but that also meant that I was the leader. I did have a "co" though - she was coming from the older girls troop with her 3rd grader. I figured "how hard can GS's be?"

Little did I know that my "co" leader would become a great friend and I would end up leading a 3 level Girl Scout troop and coordinating our school and becoming friends with many of the parents in the troop - taking girls on trips out of town - camping - scraping outdoor potties and then painting them - selling 1,000's of boxes of cookies with my daughter - watching her earn awards - becoming close with the woman in the Council office - taking on being the Service Project coordinator for the entire council area - and really really loving it!!!

This year was our 3rd Bridging Ceremony. The first year we had 3rd grade and the other troop which covered 4th & 5th. Maybe we had 50/60 people attending. It was modest, but it was fun.

The next year we added the 1st grade Daisies troop. We bumped the number up a bit and also added in the girls entertaining the group with songs and doing the Flag Ceremony.

This year our Bridging Ceremony spanned all grade - K Daisies, 1st Grd Daisies, 2nd Grd Brownies, 3rd Grd Brownies, 4th Grd Jr., 5th Grd Jr. & 6th Grd. Cadettes. It was awesome!! We had the room filled and we actually ran out of cake!! I love that my daughter is part of a community of girls that work hard for the community and accept one another for who they are - goof balls to the end really!! I also love that I can walk through the halls at school and say, "There goes one of my GS's" and on occassion have them call my name and run up and hug me.........Girl Scouts are awesome!!

This cake was half Chocolate and half White - Vanilla Buttercream icing with all deco's in Vanilla Buttercream. Fun to make - Fun to serve!

Wedding Shower Cookie + Cupcake = YUM

Short, but sweet. I think I posted these cookies on facebook. In fact I am pretty certain I did. Funny how things work...........I had a rash of sugar cookie requests for awhile and then - nothing. After the original request for Palm Trees I bought a few fun cookie cutters that I thought might come in handy. Then I was looking for things to do with the cookies - so I started sticking them on things I was giving to people.

These went on a little box of cupcakes I gave to a friend who had just gotten engaged. Sweet!

Cupcakes were White cake and Chocolate cake with a pretty Vanilla Buttercream swirl on top.

Meow - Fushia Kitty Print

Here is another cake that is from last year - or at least January - which kinda seems like last year at this point. Having raised a daughter that has made a personal pact NEVER to like pink (although I think at 11 she may be changing a smidge)........when this person asked me to do a leopard cake and then said in Fushia my head went into a clicking mode. Leopard print I could totally envision - and I thought SUPER COOL - but when I had to switch gears and envision the print in a shade of pink.......all those years of thinking "No Can't Get Her Anything With Pink" "No Pink" "Shun Pink" came crashing in and it was almost like my brain could not even fathom pink.
Even the beginning process of painting the print in pink was overwhelming, but that may be because the first step was to paint a bunch of pink blotches/circles/odd shapes all over the white fondant - and those shapes were VERY bright without the black outline. VERY PINK.

But I trudged on and eventualy had the whole cake finished. Made some fushia balls to place around the edge and called it done.

Then my Anti-Pink daughter came into the room and said, "Wow that looks really cool!" I mentioned the pink being not her color and she said, "It isn't my cake, but you did a really good job!" Yea - even an Anti-Pink person thought the cake was nice - which was good to hear because my retina's were burning from pink shock and I couldn't tell if it was nice.

Henna Thank You Cake

This was another quickie cake that I did. I know - you probably look at this and think "Quickie? Is she nuts?" Really though it did not take NEARLY as long as the cakes that need all the little pieces cut out and dried and delicately placed. It was truly a Quick Cake in comparison!

The way it came about was not expected so it had to be Quick. My friend, Julie's, mom, Waiva, used to make wedding cakes. Lately as I have been asked by friends to do fun cakes for their kids she has noticed some of my things - and Julie, who is a photographer, had asked me to do some cute bride & groom cupcakes for booth at a wedding show. Her mom ate a few and then decided to give me her cake baking pans. Just because she is sweet - well and she wasn't using them anymore. Having those pans cuts my baking time in half when I am doing something with 2 layers. I soo soo soo appreciated it.

While I was using them for the first time - and it was a super busy week with tons of stuff the kids were doing and a few too many cakes to fit into that frame - I thought - these pans are AWESOMELY helpful - when it is her birthday I want to make her a cool cake. So I called Julie and said, "Hey when it is your moms birthday let me know so I can make her cake." She responded with, "Really? Because her birthday is the day after tomorrow." I responded with, "Really? Great."

So an easy cake was needed. Julie has a LOVE LOVE LOVE for fondant - I knew her moms favorite color was purple..........so the cake would be purple. In trying to figure out what easy design I could put on the fondant I remembered a cake that I saw in a Charm City Cakes book I read. So I searched it and while it wasn't easy to find I did find Henna Art - which is what was done to the cake. Another search for Henna Art Cake brought a picture up that kinda displayed the cake I was looking for - at least enough to give me a green light in my head on the idea.

So I whipped up some Royal Icing and start piping it on the cake in a Henna design. It turned out pretty cute I thought. The kids came home from school and were all in awe about the cake. Even Dave thought it was super cool. That made me realize it was a hit.

I even got to deliver it to her mom that night while they were preparing for her birthday dinner - so I thanked her personally for her gift to me by gifting her a cake. A Cake for a Cake Maker. Sweet right?

This cake was Chocolate on the bottom and and small White cake on the top. All covered in a Vanilla buttercream icing and Vanilla fondant with Vanilla Royal Icing.

Phineas

Okay here is another cake I have been sitting on for awhile. I posted the finished cake on my facebook blog link, but never did get it up here. This cake was fun. Michelle - the person who asked me to do it - found the base idea of the cake in a seach, but she wanted it tweaked a bit to include 2 themes - Phineas & Ferb at the beach & Dr. Doofensmirtz and Perry on another layer. But most of all we both wanted to see the "Logo" for the show on the cake........so I started by staring at it and thinking "how will I ever copy that to look authentic". After I did that for a few minutes I made fondant and began the process.

Being kinda caught up in what I was doing I forgot to take pictures (sound familiar). Honestly though my camera has more sugar on it then the cereal my kids are eating these days - so it might be better that I don't take pics during the process - for the life of my camera!

To create the logo I used an Egg Shaped cookie cutter and a tiny Oval shaped cookie cutter. Then matched the fondant up. I also printed the logo out 2 times. One was for referencing as I put things together and the other was to size that I wanted to make the logo for tracing the words Phineas & Ferb.
So basically - I cut 2 layers of the background orange. I placed the sucker pop sticks that I use for Cake Pops in the center of the 2 layers and adhered them to one another with Caro syrup. Then I placed the yellow layer and the small red dot in the middle on top and let it sit for a bit. (I am only NOW noticing that I forgot to pipe "and" in the red dot).

While that was drying a bit I rolled some gumpaste out really thin and let it set up (dry) a bit. This doesn't take long - maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Long enough to read a short book to a 5 year old who will hardly make it to the end of the book. Then I began cutting the letters out. Layed them over the top of the fondant and cut them out with a very sharp knife - or exacto knife. Once these were done I layed those on top of the logo to complete it. Phineas's hair didn't want to stay up and since it sits on the edge I decided that while it was drying for the next few days it would have a support - so I tucked some papertowel underneath it.

Then a few days later I began to assemble the cake. The top layer was Phineas and Ferb at the beach surfing. This is very close to a copy of the original cake Michelle brought to me.

The bottom layer though is different. In the version she and I decided I would create we did a lab for Dr. D and Agent Perry to be in. I asked my 9 year old what things a kid would expect to see in Dr. D's lab..........he said he had no clue. What??? He watched Phineas and Ferb for 2 hour stretches - kids. In fact he informed me that he really wasn't that "into" P&F anymore. Which I guess meant he was sleep watching all those episodes the day before. Kids.

Michelle and I agreed there would need to be a computer screen that said the birthday boys name.........

After that I figured there would need to be a Ray Gun and a few computers. It was fun looking at images of Dr. D's lab and then trying to bring them onto the cake with fondant.

One image I saw over and over was the lab - or some kind of a dome shape that looked like maybe it was a view from outside the lab? I wasn't sure, but I thought it looked fun to copy so I did. Later Ben came in when the cake was done and looked at it. His eyes lit up and he said it was totally cool. He walked around the cake and pointed out various things I had put in the lab and named them off - so I did copy the lab in a way that kids would recognize things - yea!!

And since this cake - Ben has found a renewed love for Phineas and Ferb. He has been watching it a lot lately. Sweet because I kinda like the catchy songs they sing.

This cake was chocolate on the bottom with a Oreo cookie buttercream center - and white on the top with a vanilla buttercream. All topped with a vanilla fondant. Yum!

Confirmation Mosaic

So it is that time of hear........Confirmations, First Communions, Baptisms.........so many fun celebrations. A friend asked me if I would make a Confirmation cake for her son. Well originally in my head when she asked I thought it was for her daughter - and I proposed a nice white cake with a pink background and beautiful small roses........it was really pretty in my head.

And she totally agreed - but then she pointed out it was for Nate and not for her daughter so Blue themed might work a bit better. I poked around on the internet to see if anyone had come up with a brilliant idea for making a cake seem less girly for Confirmation. And I found a cake that wasn't for Confirmation - but it was a mosaic. This made me think of my friend Jeanette and all the beautiful mosaic's she does on her blog - Jeanette Eats Spaghetti and an idea was born. That is what I love about this cake art hobby - you literally can bring any other craft you do into a cake decoration.

I knew it would take me forever to do a mosaic all over the top of the cake - so I just did a small border of pieces around the main focal point of the cross. Which, by the way, I printed my own stencil out on paper ...........

So I did the most eye catching piece of mosaic on the side of the cake. Now......if you clicked over to Jeanette's blog and looked at the lovely tray that she mosaic'd (is that a word?) then you will see she used all her empty space. Me - not so much. But it was my FIRST time doing a mosaic. Now I would love love love to do something outside in our yard this summer. I am already looking about plates to break........

This cake was Chocolate with Vanilla buttercream icing and a touch of vanilla fondant.

Batman........Make Your Own Template

There are SO MANY totally cool tools out there to use on the market in order to make MILLIONS of neat designs on cakes!! Believe me.........I search them for fun in my spare time and think.........wow that would be cool to have. Save it to Favorites on my computer (which drives Dave mad because I have a never ending list if you click "favorites" on my page on the computer - but I can find everything in a heartbeat so it works for me).

A few months ago I bought a Cricut for fondant. Also very cool. Used it 1x. Probably I will use it again - eventually - hopefully! because the dang thing was $100 (I used Christmas money that I had sitting around for those of you who know I am too cheap to splurge on things - and a 50% off sale - bonus right?). So anyway - the box ......... and tons of blogs ......... said that I could use it to make every design possible - which may be true - however, you have to buy a million cartridges to do this - which my friend, Julie, apparently has - but who preplans this stuff? Oh yeah, me. I do preplan, but I don't gather all the materials needed in time all the time.

Plus - honestly - making my own template free of charge is often Quicker - Easier - and more Accurate as to what I am looking to make. CASE IN POINT - This Batman Cake -

All I wanted to do was a simple Batman Logo. So like any techie I searched it. Then I copied the picture and pasted it into a Publisher document. Easy enough right?
Then I baked a cake (okay you caught me - the cake was baked already - and cooled - and iced - and I had already placed a beautiful topper of fondant over it). Ready to be CREATED into something...........

I printed my Batman Logo out. If I were doing buttercream then I would have kept the logo close to the cake as I freehand drew it onto the cake in buttercream icing. Hard to do, but doable.

However, for this cake I was going the mildly easier route and using fondant. So I used this template in STEPS.

Step 1 - cut the template out around the larger black oval - toss white paper into recycling and then place on black fondant and cut around the oval.

Step 2 - remove the same template off the fondant and then cut the template around the yellow oval - toss black trim paper into recycling and then place on yellow fondant and cut around the oval.

Step 3 - remove the same template (are you getting the hang of this?) off the fondant and then cut the bat template out of - toss the yellow trim paper into recycling and then place on black fondant and cut around the bat.

Step 4 - Assemble all those pieces on top of one another in the center of the top of the cake.

Voila!! Easy - AND - Free.

Then I added the birthday message and did something cute, easy & similar to the sides of the cake..........

I rolled more black fondant out and cut it into different shapes - squares, rectangles, points, and placed them along the sides to look a bit like a city landscape. Used some yellow royal icing (dries faster then buttercream) and dotted the city to look as those it were "awake" with lights.

Tah Dah!! See...............the tools you use decorating a cake do not have to include $100 (with Christmas money and a 50% off sale) cutting devices. It can just be your IMAGINATION and INGENUITY and you are golden........

This cake was Chocolate Chocolate Chip with Vanilla Buttercream and Vanilla Fondant - plus a little Royal Icing for deco. Well received and big applause from the friends who ate it!

Garry & Patrick........

Whoops - I thought these went out months ago!! These were the cutest ever cupcakes (in my opinion). The day that I did these I had 2 extra children......and they did so so so so so well with The Line that it made things easier for me to get them done.

What is The Line? Haven't I talked about that before? Oh. Well The Line is very well known in my house. Generally The Line was invented to help children from getting into trouble. Although if you asked the children they might say that The Line was invented to keep them away from the fun.

See early on - when making cakes wasn't happening as often - the kids had kinda free reign in the kitchen. I mean anything I was baking was for my family. So I wasn't really worried about germs. Well...........I was worried about germs if the bakery good was going out of the house or being used for a party. But in the first few years of living here in Central Illinois we weren't having many parties - so baking was mostly for us. If the kids stuck a finger in the batter I wasn't too worried. I mean batter fingers and licking spatulas is the best part of baking for a kid anyway right? Who wants to take that away?

Then when I began to make cakes for others as favors the kids still had the same mindset of where the comfort zone was for touching things. In my mind the understanding was pretty clear cut - If The Cake Is For Someone Else...........WE DON'T TOUCH. They didn't seem to get that. In fact I remember one day where I had just mixed a batter.......Ben came in and literally STUCK his face into the bowl and sniffed in REALLY REALLY DEEP and complimented me by saying, "That smells great". All I could think was GROSS!! Dave was there with us and explained to Ben how gross that was and how he just spread germs all over the batter. Ben pointed out how he didn't touch the batter or sneeze on it (yes, this has happened in the past). So we explained how little things can still drop from a persons closely placed face in bowl. Ben apologized and left. I turned around and Kid You Not! Dave has his face in the bowl breathing in really deeply and says, "That does smell great."

Seriously? Batter thrown out. The Line invented. In our kitchen we have an island. Our kitchen is kind of an L shape. The island starts at the long stretch of the L. Inside the L there is the island (duh), sink, fridge (not the British rock band) and stove - and all cabinets. When I am baking or decorating a cake The Line goes up. This means basically that they can enter the kitchen and exit the kitchen onto the porch.......but they can not walk through the portion of the kitchen that has anything useful or interesting to them. Which can be hard.

At first.........during The Line training.......I would have to repeat "There is a line here" and physically swoop my arm from the wall - across the floor and end of the island - to the wall. Over and over we did this. About 5 cakes in the kids began to come into the kitchen and would see ingredients on the island and ask, "Is The Line up?" Thus The Line became its own "thing"

When I was making these fun cupcakes the Grey boys were here. These weren't the first kiddo's to visit when I was baking.......but they were the best at responding to The Line. Good job Pennie! When Andersen told the oldest Grey that there was A Line.....he looked for it - pretended to see it - push against it - made fun of it - but he NEVER crossed it! And that is all that counted........because honestly and invisible line is kinda funny - necessary - but funny.

Patrick was my favorite cupcake of them all. At first - when I cut his body out with a star - all it looked like was A STAR. Then as I added more items and moved his arms and legs about he began to really look like Patrick!

With The Line up - the kids paying due respect of The Line and Dave bringing home lunch - these were pretty quick to be made!

The cupcakes were Chocolate Chocolate chip and White cake - all with a Vanilla Buttercream icing and Vanilla Fondant.

Rapunzel & Architecture

It is the sweetest thing ever (pun intended on the use of sweet because....well this is about cakes) - Dave watches Alton Brown videos about cake stuff. I am not sure if he is doing this because I out loud say, "Why does that happen?" when some cake related thing occurs ........ or if it is because I try to explain something about a cake related thing and Dave doesn't get what I am saying and wants to hear an experts take........or if it is because really he has always like Alton Brown - which I shouldn't overlook - he has watched Alton on Food Network for years - but now he is looking up cake stuff and watching on the computer so I am totally taking it to be a sweet support to my cake dealings.

How is this related to the mess of stacked cake above? Well he was watching an Alton Brown episode about whipping eggs or something and there was a question/answer thing happening and he made the statement that many cake designers have an architecture background. Usually I can zone out what Dave is watching........because unlike the kids when they watch videos (like Annoying Orange) on the computer.....I don't make him put on earphones. This statement by Mr. Brown caught my attention - because in High School I studied drafting and architecture.......and then in my first year in college I continued my studies. Many of you know that following that first year I switched schools and eventually attended many colleges before earning my bachelors and masters in social work and counseling related fields - not architecture. Still.......I do have an architecture/design background of sorts. So this statement was kinda cool.

See Mr. Jackson........apparently I am using my years of architecture after all - just in cake building. Kudos to you for making me so good at it all.

Now the first picture is of a budding tower. And I didn't just stack those cakes up and hope for the best. That would have been ridiculously not smart.

This is the beginning of the roof top of the tower. The original cake I found on line had a roof just like this. But this looked pretty.........well..........boring and like a hat that I made in kindergarten with construction paper.
In fact if you turn it upside down you will see that it basically is the hat I made in Kindergarten. I took a piece of poster board - created a cone - lined that with plastic wrap so the fondant didn't adhere to the cone - then I put a base on the cone so that the weight of the fondant didn't pop it (I'm a mother - I worry about everything).

Then to make the cone head roof look a little nicer I put shingles on. This is my first shingle making and while I did really well, they are by far not at all uniform........of course if I think about it do you think the elves who were making the shingles in the forest for the magical tower that Rapunzel would live in made them all uniform? No probably not. Besides they were using wood - which is probably way easier then fondant. Elves have such an easy life. All they mostly make are cookies and shingles.

Now .......this is really the only architecturally structural picture I took. I knew that if I left the stacked cakes without a base support I would be crying the next day. So I put 3 very long dowel rods into the cake. Unfortunately one of the dowel rods went in at a slight angle. Personally I began freaking out as soon as I realized that to take it out and replace it might mean to cause holes that would cause cracks.

My husbands advice was that I was worrying about nothing that needed to be worried about. It would all be fine. Move forward and let it go.

My focus was to drive him berserk. "Can you come here and look at this?"......"What do you think does it look like it shifted?"......"Do you think it will hold?"......."How about now has it shifted now?"......each question came with his having to bend over and peer at the cake (or pretend to in order to appease me) as I turned the cake swirling around thing (you store may call it something else if you go to purchase one of these).

Once it seemed Dave had enough of this I left him alone.........for a bit at least.......and moved onto the next thing.

The landscape. I iced the landscape to include a river. Can you see the river?

As I was putting the landscape to the side to dry before putting fondant on it my 5 year old came in and said, "Maudy that is way too bumpy to be smooth." I said, "It is going to be a valley with a river in it. Can you see the river?"........he looked at me like I had lost my mind. Nodded his head and smiled at me like he was afraid to tell me he didn't think it did. And walked away.

I can see the river........can you see the river?

Then I iced the outside of the tower. A nice gray mortar kind of a color. And Dave and I did another round of "Can you come here and look at this?"......"What do you think does it look like it shifted?"......"Do you think it will hold?"......."How about now has it shifted now?"......

Then I began placing the rocks on the tower. Added a few windows that Rapunzel would have swung open if she were planning to throw her locks out to Finn to climb.......and did another round of Does this look leany to you Dave? Dave was getting quite tired of this game, but he was playing it really well by continuously stating, "No it is going to be fine." "It looks great.".......but he didn't want to play anymore and left - then luckily my friend, Sheri, showed up to drop her son off for a sleepover. Unfortunately for me though.....when I asked her "Does this look leany to you?" she said, "Yes."

So I spent the rest of my night LOOKING at the tower.....over and over and over and over. I was so paranoid about the cake leaning into breakage that the side I thought was leaning I put a towel under the cake swirling thing to make sure it started leaning straight - because things can lean back to straight right? In my head at least........hey no one ever said I was a GREAT Architecture student (but I was - right Mr. Jackson?).

While waiting for my tower to fall over I went back to the valley. Put a nice layer of fondant over the top......pretty right? Then started to fill in the river........My five year old started to see it.

Add in a few boulders around the river - some grass - a few pine trees........a lizard - rather I believe he is a chameleon.
Then a few flowers scattered all about............. After that I called it a night. Tried not to think about the tower that I had propped to lean straight in the china hutch and played with the kids.

The next day we took the entire collection of cake pieces - and two cookies - to the party.

These are views of the car ride to the Birthday Girls house. I thought that the view from this angle was kinda cool. What I did was place the tower on the cake and then pushed the remaining portion of the dowel rods into the base cake. There was also a cake board at the bottom of the tower that had hole punches matching the top of the tower - so there was a foundation at the top and bottom that kept the dowel rods from shifting much.

Although in my head the whole thing was about to fall at any moment. Poor Dave driving the van........

Once we got to the party I put the roof on the tower - placed the figures they had given me to use on the cake........and all was right with the world.

The cookies were Shortbread........I was trying to think of a way to get the Birthday Girls name and message onto the cake and also incorporate the crown that Finn had stolen and was a pivotal point for the characters. Plus everyone loves a cookie right?

So in the end Dave was right (please don't tell him I typed that). The tower was fine. I worried for nothing. But hey, I'm a mother - I worry.

This cake was Chocolate with Vanilla Buttercream and White with Vanilla Buttercream.......Vanilla Fondant and Shortbread cookies with Royal Icing. The pictures of the final cake could have been better, but honestly - I was so crazy nervous putting it together I am just happy I remembered to TAKE a picture!