Micah's 10th Birthday

It was hard to come up with something new for Micah's cake as his interests stay pretty consistent.  But, when asked, he ultimately determined he wanted a Hunger Games cake and it brought on the job of making a nice, celebratory cake out of a dark and haunting theme.  Unfortunately, he also wanted his birthday at the cottage which meant my yearly challenge with making a cake in high humidity without my normal space or tools. Aaggh!  But, there's nothing better than a sunny day at the lake on your birthday, so the humid cake decorating challenge was on.

I found a great idea online to make the mockingjay symbol from the book, and it turned out more amazing than I could have ever imagined.  I traced the symbol in pieces from a printout onto black fondant, which I then added dimension to with some 3D style pieces on the bird's body.  Then, a quick dusting of gold powder gave it a great old metallic look and it couldn't have turned out better!

Unfortunately, after that it was compromise after compromise.  My triple layer cake became a double, the slanting top became flat, and the fire moved from hardened sugar on top of the cake to fondant on the sides.  It still looked okay in the end, it just didn't have the wow factor that the amazing cake topper deserved.  Oh well, Micah was pleased and that's all that matters...right?!

Paige's 12th Birthday

Scrolling for ideas on the internet, I came across a fun new cake idea which I knew would work great for Paige (my lover of all things candy).  I combined it with a concept I have known about for years but never tried, and it turned out perfectly.  In fact, it was so easy and turned out so well I decided if I were to open a shop this would definitely be on my menu for ordering.

The cake itself was a basic two-layer 9x13 with a layer of funfetti frosting in between.  I covered it with green fondant, and then carefully cut out the number 12 from the fondant and top layer of the cake.  This created a 12-shaped hole that I was able to fill with sour flavored skittles (Paige's current favorite).  I proceeded to add a border of skittles and some fondant circles to match my skittle colors.  Super cute!

Finally, I took the skittles wrapper, propped it on a skewer and glued sour skittles to it so that it looked like they were falling out of the bag.  I originally tried chocolate melts to hold them on, but that didn't work well due to the sugar coating on the skittles, so I moved to frosting, which did the trick for the small pouring effect I was going for.  Chocolate melts might be better for higher pouring effects, but I'll have to try that next time with a candy that has a more solid covering.

Like I said, super easy and turned out super cute.  I would definitely do this one again with other candies like M&M's or possibly Nerds.