Micah's 9th Birthday

 This summer we got to enjoy Micah's birthday at Green Lake again.  Wonderful for celebrating a birthday, miserable for making a cake.  But, I'm not one to shy away from a challenge, so I went for it anyway.

Micah wanted a Zelda cake, but since I have done one of those before, I wanted to do something a little different.  I chose a character from the video game (a korok seed) and decided to go with a shape cake.  The body was made of cake while the arms and top points were made of rice cereal treat.  Despite the humidity, I was able to get it all covered with fondant in a somewhat tree-like coloring.

I created peanut butter balls which I painted with gold dust to look like the seeds around the bottom.  The face was difficult to get to stand out, but ultimately a bunch of toothpicks gave it some dimension.  I was sure to keep it in the refrigerator as much as possible to try and stop any drooping, and in the end it kept it's shape pretty well.

Not many people knew what it was, but Micah was pleased with the outcome.

Paige's 11th Birthday

 This year Paige has been very into Boba Tea.  So, she asked for a Boba Tea cake.  I clarified that she didn't want the cake to taste like Boba, and she said no but showed me a photo of the cake she wanted.  So, once again I duplicated something.

This cake didn't really force me to try any new techniques.  I worked on getting nice smooth frosting, making cute fondant cutouts, and finding the exact right toppings which looked like Boba (but were actually dark chocolate covered cherries and blueberries).  In the end it was adorable, Paige loved it, and it was easy.  Guess I'll have to save learning something new for next time.