Woof! Woof! It’s Tiffany’s birthday cake…
Before I had any children, I decided that I want to make them special birthday cakes. Some people look at it as a waste of time. I look at it as FUN! Fun without costing alot of money.
Tiffany just turned 2. I made her a doghouse birthday cake. I used a house-shaped pan that I bought at our local Michaels store. I use the term ‘local’ loosely… the closest Michaels is an hour and a half away. It’s good I live that far away from it, I’d spend alot of time (and money) there. I’ll bet I could spend all day there (if I didn’t have kids in tow, that is).
I started with a cake mix. Pillsbury Moist Supreme pudding-in-the-mix.
I always use this kind of cake mix for birthday cakes and it always gets rave reviews. So, I figure why make a cake from scratch?! I really don’t remember when the last time was that I made a cake from scratch. Oh, probably a red velvet cake last year sometime. I always make red velvet from scratch. But that’s the only kind I make from scratch.
When baked, the cake fills the pan up perfectly. Cut the rounded part off the top with a long-bladed knife.
Now comes the apprehensive part of flipping it out of the pan… will part of the cake stay with the pan? Will I have to dig around at it with a knife? Will it be so bad that I have to start over and go to the store for another cake mix? Before dumping the batter in, I sprayed the pan with PAM cooking spray. Here’s how it came out! Perfect!
I did not wipe any cake remnants out of the pan before taking this picture. I’d definitely recommend PAM if you ever make something that needs to be baked then flipped out of the pan!
We’ve got siding on the first side now.
I spread frosting on the cake first to make it flat because it had impressions on there for the windows for a regular house. Um, I don’t think I’ll have to wade thro’ calls from construction companies asking me to join their siding crew! It is pretty much seamless though, so that’s good.
Now all the siding is on, although you can’t really tell it.
And we have a roof.
A bit more trim and a name for the dog… SPOT, yeah, I know, so original. But, any other dog name (like Maxwell, which is what Lexi wants to name her first dog) would’ve been too long to write. Rex would’ve fit good, too. My first puppy was named Rusty. He was a pure-bred Collie. Ok, he wasn’t actually MY puppy… we had a pair of pure-bred Collies, (beautiful dogs!) and they had pups and so each of us children claimed one and named it. We had them until someone bought them. I had mine the longest and I was tickled when it was my uncle who got Rusty because I could still see him now and then. You don’t know how wonderful that was unless you know how nostalgic I am. My uncle named him Rex, so I really like that name for a dog, except he, of course, was always still Rusty to me.
That’s brownies under the cake (made with brownie mix, of course). I’m not a cake fan, but brownies I can’t leave alone, so that layer is for me. I realized I’m in the minority because the cake was pretty much licked clean and most of the brownie layer was left. Those brownies were just a 9×13 pan, then I cut irregular borders to add a casual look to the cake. The ‘cake board’ is my cutting board covered with tin foil and taped on the bottom. I just wrapped it up like you would a gift.
Here is a close-up of the grass. This was time-comsuming. And my hand got sore. But it looked pretty neat on there… made me anxious for Spring! It is, by the way, snowing outside right now. The grass alone took about a half hour. The entire cake took just under 3 hours.
Here are the tips I used. Started from the left: the tip for the grass, for the trim, for the little flowers in the yard which you’ll see on the finished cake below, for the roof, and the one for the siding. For the stuff that you’d think I used a round tip for, my round tip fell on the floor and got stepped on and smashed awhile ago, so instead of getting another one, I just put frosting in a sandwich bag and snip off a bit of the corner. Works great! And no tip to clean!
Here’s the finished cake…
Here’s the back of it…
And here’s the birthday girl!
This is Tiffany’s second birthday. For her first birthday cake, I made her Lego blocks, pictured below.
The house pan I used for Tiffany’s doghouse is the same pan I used for the house for Lexi’s 4th birthday, except for hers I put 2 together to make it a more realistic-shaped house. To see Lexi’s cakes: birthdays 1 - 4 and birthday 5.
If you ask any questions in the comments, please check back because I’ll reply in the comments. I’d also love to hear from you what birthday cakes you’ve made. And if you have some pictured on your blog, feel free to leave a link so we can go see it!
Coloring Book Birthday Cake
I saw Crayola candles while shopping one day last month and thought they were so cute, so this is how I decided to use them. 
9×13 chocolate cake (pudding-in-the-mix cake mix)
Book carved…
Frosted, but needs another coat…
For the pictures, I looked off of those 2 pages in the picture above and toothpicked them on each side, then piped the outline with black frosting. In this picture, the one picture is already piped on and the other one is just ‘toothpicked’…
Done…
I wish I would’ve let it looking more half-colored instead of coloring in so much. Might’ve looked more like a coloring book that way. The crayons laying around are candles with the wicks cut off.
And here is the birthday girl…
The Making of a Birthday Cake for the Teacher
What a day! I got up this morning and mixed up some frosting for a birthday cake for one of the school teacher’s birthday party this afternoon.
The first thing that happened is that I splattered red food coloring on my housecoat (bummer, no more fun baking before getting dressed)… then things got worse from there. I was piping roses onto toothpicks and this being I think my first time doing that, you can imagine how good it went! I soon lowered my standards on how nice the roses had to look and the whole rose-making process went faster from there.
I went out of the kitchen for about 2 minutes for a bathroom break when Lexi said, “Mom, Tiffany got into the sugar. Oh, now she dumped some on the floor. Mom, can we play in it?” I came back to the kitchen as soon as I could and this is what I found…
They were both licking sugar off the floor! Lexi said, “This sugar isn’t very good not on anything, but we like it anyway.” They were so sticky, so I put them in the tub while I cleaned up the floor (not like I had alot of extra time for that!). The sugar, by the way, is stored in a canister in that bottom drawer in front of them.
I had to run to Walmart because I wasn’t sure I had enough powdered sugar for all the frosting I was going through, plus I had to get ice cream, chips, and drink yet to round out the party. I got Lexi some popcorn chicken at the deli for her for lunch and as I rounded a corner in the store, I felt myself step on something at about the same time Lexi said “Oh, no!” 3/4 of her chicken had spilled and went down thro’ the holes in the cart and they were all laying on the floor behind me. I hurry picked them up, not looking around at other shoppers.
When we got home, Tiffany was kind of clingy, so while I was trying to carefully write “Happy Birthday Miss Hershey”, she was tugging at my skirt. Poor girl hadn’t had much of mom all morning. And while I was carefully and meticulously putting the flowers and leaves on, Lexi (who was standing on a chair beside me) would once in awhile lean on my shoulder and say, “That looks very beautiful!” How can you say “DON’T BUMP ME!!!” after something like that?!
Anyway, I had to leave by about 2:00 and I got done with the cake at 1:53, so it was a rush of changing the baby, getting on shoes and jackets, getting everything out to the car and when we got to the school, I got everything around, ready to go, and was as cool and composed as could be on the outside, but on the the inside it felt like I was still in high gear. On the way to the party, just out of the blue, Lexi said, “Mom, you are a very good mom.” Oh, I love that girl!!!! I said, “Oh, thankyou. Sometimes it seems like I rush us all around so much and forget to be nice.” She said, “Yeah, you do, but you’re still a good mom.”
So anyway, here’s the making of the cake…
I did the roses on toothpicks, then poked the toothpicks down thro’ a grater and a colander and pulled them out the bottom. Then, I put the roses (still on the colander and grater) in the fridge to get hard, then transferred them to a plate.
Putting the ribbon on. I had always wanted to try that, and it worked great. I did it right after frosting the sides so the ribbon would stick.
The bow is separate, stuck on there with a dab of frosting.
A bit of trim and some writing. The cake is starting to look promising, even though things are hectic around here.
The roses are placed on… I think I made too many, but put them on anyway.
DONE!
And here is out top notch 1st grade teacher.
As I was at the party among all the excitement, trying to relax inside, I realized that some things in life just aren’t worth getting stressed over. Things like a totaled kitchen waiting at home and the horror of the girls licking sugar off the floor and the spilled popcorn chicken and the bumps and tugs while decorating a cake. There’s more to life… like excitement, laughter, friends, and those 2 sweet girls I can call my own.
4 Birthday Cakes
Lexi’s Birthday Cakes
1st birthday Dec. 2003
2nd birthday Dec. 2004
3rd birthday Dec. 2005
4th birthday Dec. 2006 The party is tomorrow! 
About Me
Hi! Welcome to my kitchen! My name is Kay. I'm from northern WI. I love cooking and baking. Especially baking. It's thereapeudic for me. I'm not a professional or gourmet cook by any means. I'm a Mennonite homemaker who happens to take pictures of some of the food I make. I have 2 little 'helpers'... Lexi (5) and Tiffany (2), who are young cooks in training. I don't do anything on the grill... that's where my husband comes in! He grills quite a bit, especially in the summer. So, sit back and enjoy browsing thro' the recipes. If you try some of them, I'd love to hear feedback on how you liked them!
Blogroll
- Cookie Madness - Great recipes and pictures of cookies that leave you with a helpless craving.
- Mama’s Southern Cooking - Comfy site with good cookin’ and lots of tips.
- The Pioneer Woman Cooks! - Home-cooking, lots of pictures and fun reading
Her Blog Directory