Homemade Birthday Cake

Last year, for his 6th Birthday, James decided he wanted a Minecraft birthday cake. We looked in the shops and couldn’t find one, and a professional one was out of our budget. The only option left was to have a go ourselves…

Now people who know me, understand that baking isn’t my strong point. I can cook (I make fab cheese on toast), but baking and especially cake making for an occasion has always quite frankly scared me.

My first points of call were pinterest and google image search and, after an hour of searching (Not that I am picky at all, not me!) I found a cake I liked and quite luckily for me, when I followed the link the was also an accompanying Youtube video. Hurrah!

Without really thinking about it too much, I began and I followed the instructions in the video… and this happened.

 

I was completely amazed at the result, and so was Mr T who had helped out by making the fondant models for me.

A New Tradition

James really loved his Minecraft cake, and to see the look of amazement on his face was amazing. Me and Mr T really enjoyed making it together, I left Mr T in charge of modelling and he did a fantastic job, while i did the baking, ganache and icing. He says all those years of play dough finally came in useful!

The Vision for Lily’s Cake

This week we have celebrated Lily’s 5th Birthday, and I wanted to continue the tradition and bake her a cake she would love. Last week Lily went to her first Rainbows meeting, and afterwards she couldn’t stop talking about it, she was so excited. She as always loved drawing rainbows and has drawn a few different ones in the last few weeks, so we decided on a rainbow cake. After an hour of  searching I decided on these;

 

Yes that’s right, im completely crazy. There are a few reasons for this.

1. My last fondant cake was awful, Im not been critical, there is no other way to describe it!
2. I have a 2-year-old and a 8 month old at home during the day
3. I also promised my nephew i would make him a Minecraft cake as he loved James, and his birthday is the day before Lily’s.

Two cakes in two days, with a toddler and a baby. Im am Crazy.

But with some questionable parenting we made it. (Amy spent a good part of the morning soaking wet through, as she was playing with James colour changing cars, dipping them in warm water, then cold to make them change colour. Did I mention the cold water was upstairs in the bathroom, and the warm in the kitchen sink? She loved it, and I managed to bake 12 individual different cakes (8 layers for the Rainbow cake, and 4 for the Minecraft cake)

But this was the result, not perfect, but I was exhausted and proud in equal measures!

Lilys 5th Birthday Cake (I wrote about it here)

 

The top layer is 2 layers of chocolate cake, with white and green vanilla buttercream and fondant icing, and the bottom layer is the rainbow cake, again with vanilla buttercream and fondant. (I wrote a post about it here)

Lily absolutely loved it which is all that ever mattered really. She wanted to eat the fondant number 5 first and straight after she blew her candles out that’s what she did, before we even cut the first slice. I dread to think how much sugar was consumed!

My Nephews Minecraft Cake.

 

I think this tradition is here to stay as Amy is already planning her cake, after her sheer disappointment that all 12 cakes that appeared from the oven didn’t weren’t for Amy’s cake (She will be 3 in April)

I think perhaps I need to plan a little bit better next time, but on the positive side, if I am making at least 4 cakes a year, I may be able to make one without panicing by the time my children are 18!

We celebrated Lily’s birthday and then had 2 full days doing bare minimum to recover (We dressed, did the school run and ate, that’s acceptable right?).

I am linking up with Katie @MummyDaddyMe for #TheOrdinaryMoments

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