Birthdays, Cakes, Wedding Memories And Other Madnesses!

So, it is October!

Around here that usually means lots of birthdays, lots of parties, lots of prepping - generally too much to do and not enough time! I don’t think we have a single weekend between now and the second week of November when we don’t have at least one birthday party to attend - some weekends we have two!

October is usually started by my birthday on the 3rd, which to my children signals that their birthday is only 17 days away! So the birthday fever goes up a whole notch or three!

 

This year has been interesting in terms of the twin’s birthday preparations! While in previous years, I was able to somehow combine their birthday party wishes in one “theme”, this year that was just not going to happen anymore!

Last year we were already nearing that stage, but I dodged that one by having their birthday party on the Halloween weekend and therefore having a Halloween party theme for their birthday! That enabled us to combine Princesses with Dinosaurs without too much problems!

 

This year however, their birthday falls on a Saturday, which means we can actually have a birthday party on the day of their birthday! How exciting is that?!

 

This year they are very clear about their theme wishes though. “My little Pony” and “Angry Birds”. Yep, such a natural combination, don’t you think?

The kids are also in different classes this year, so their circle of friends is starting to be different!

For their birthday cakes, Anna wants a “My little Pony” castle cake and Max of course wants an “Angry Birds” cake!

 

Yesterday I realized that my run-of-the-mill cake decorating stuff isn’t going to cut it on this one, so I had to go and unearth my slightly more I-really-mean-it cake decorator tools.

 

 

It was interesting to see them out! It had been a long time - in fact I think the last time I had them out was for our wedding cake.

I still found 2 of the white flowers that adorned the wedding cake almost undamaged in there too! Not bad for 8 years and 2 moves!

 

 

Yes,  I made my own wedding cake and yes, I was crazy!

In an effort to save money, I thought I would do pretty much the entire wedding myself - including catering, wedding cake and decorating. It was a small wedding mind you and somewhat bare bones, but there was still crazy much to do!

I stopped short of sewing my own wedding dress and doing my own hair for the day, which is just as well because things turned a tad more crazy when we found out that I was expecting twins only a couple of weeks before our church wedding (we celebrated our wedding twice by getting married legally and then celebrating out church wedding several months later in an effort to accommodate family and friends!)

 

So, by the time we got close to the wedding, I was seriously plagued with pretty much 24/7 twin morning sickness! While catering my own wedding and making my own wedding cake. Yes, I am surprised too I got anything resembling food or a cake done for that day too!

 

 

In fact, my biggest worry on the day was that I would lose any and all bridal decorum by unceremoniously puking at an inappropriate moment during the wedding ceremony or during the reception! Not that there ever is an appropriate moment for that in the proceedings, I’m sure!

However,  I did make it through without incident! And we had a beautiful wedding day!

But I totally digress!

 

Back to the kid’s cakes!

Last night I started. Since both cakes require a lot of fondant modeling, I have to start early, so there is a chance for it all to dry!

So, I thought I will periodically update you with my cake decorating progress as it happens.

Here is what I started last night!

 

 

 

 

Both my children decided that they wanted to be able to keep the figures that will be on the cake, which suited me just fine, because that saves me from the rather more difficult task of modeling  authentic Princess Cadence and Shining Armor which may be a little above my abilities and Anna is very detail oriented!

For Max’s cake I will have a few plastic angry birds on his cake for him to keep and some fondant modeled ones, since he will need to have quite a few pigs and birds on there!

 

So, for the turrets, here is what I did.

I covered the inside of a wrapping paper tube with baking parchment, then rolled out a piece of fondant in a rectangle and smoothed it over the covered roll. Once I closed the seems, I ran my knife across the top and bottom to even it out. Hopefully that will insure the turrets sitting straight on the cake/board when it comes to assembly.

Then I cut out a little window and decorated it with little flowers and a rope of sugar paste. Everything is stuck down with just a little water on a brush.

This now needs to dry until it is totally hard, so it can stand being pushed into a cake. I have several more of these to make and soon, so there is enough time to dry!

 

 

For the pointy roof , I covered an ice cream cone in fondant and tucked the excess under. Then smoothed it out until it’s all nice and even.

 

 

 

 

For two of them so far, I rolled some fondant into a rope and twirled it around the roof, again sticking it down with some water. Then I finished the bottom with some sugar pearls and the top with a couple of fondant balls in coordinating colors.

I may do that with the others too, or I may actually do something different for those turrets. I haven’t decided yet!

Once dried and assembled, they will look something like this:

 

 

So, that’s how far I am for the moment! I will keep you updated as I go!

 

Have any of you ever made a castle or an angry bird cake? Any pointers, tips and tricks you can offer?

 

Have a fabulous day!