Cute cake making for dummies

I am one of the somewhat irrational breed of moms who feels inadequate if I do not produce the cake for my kids' birthday parties. Never mind that I let my husband cook dinner on most nights. Birthday cakes must be original masterpieces made by *moi. ( I use the word "masterpiece" very loosely here).

*I will give credit to Tiffany who made Finny's first birthday cake. But that cake was 3D so it does not count.

Last year, good sense overcame the urge to over-achieve and I bought my daughter a cake. On the way home from the store it met an ugly fate involving a soccer ball rolling around in the van. (My husband had been the errand boy for this particular task and oh my dear, did he hear about that ). I also bought a cake for my boys' combined birthday last year. It was ok but sort of boring and the vast quantities of lurid blue and green icing which appeared to have been spray painted was somewhat off-putting to me at least. I thus remain unconverted to the school of store- bought cakes.

Some of my cakes have turned out better then others.
There was the unfortunate incident of the Diego cake earlier this year. But then again, I saw this cake show up on my computer screen today and it held only happy memories. It was one of those rare cakes that came together easily, looked quite cute and tasted pretty good too. Behold the Pink Parisian Poodle who came to Gracie's 5th birthday party. Gracie had a large part in her creation.

There was a tea-pot cake from when she turned 3

Another low stress, high impact cake. Results not necessarily typical.

The other night in the official kick-off to Chaos, I had an (extremely) limited time to make a cake fit to be in a raffle for our school's ice cream social. I know my limitations so I decided to go as simple as possible. What can be simpler then a cute ghost? It's all white, and the shape is pretty much open to interpretation. It fit the bill. So my ever-helpful husband baked a sheet cake which I intended to cut in the shape of a ghost and frost and call good. Well naturally, the cake got stuck in the pan. And came out in non-ethereal chunks. So much for that. Onto Plan B. The cupcake cake. I had not ever tried one before but this is what I discovered:

There are many advantages to the cupcake cake. My top two are these:

1.You can make a shape without cutting. And rearrange that shape. Again and again. Til it works. No sweat.
2. This means you don't have to frost cut, crumby bits of cake. AND you don't have to frost the sides! Score! And Score again!

In less then 15 minutes after my easily-removed-from- the -pan cupcakes had cooled, this little cute little fellow emerged. Hardly inspired but for the time he took to create, he turned out just fine. You can't tell, but he even shimmered a bit thanks to the miracle of sparkly sugar (I love me some sparkly sugar). Someone asked me if I poked my finger in the middle to make the mouth but actually no. (Not that I am above such measures). It was the one spot where the cupcakes didn't meet and behold! A serendipitously placed mouth.



Here are some of the other advantages of the cupcake cake.

• No more guessing how many people the cake will feed. One cupcake each. Even I can do that Math.
• No need for slicing
• I am just really very fond of the cupped cake. I believe it may be cake in it's finest form.
  

Now, yes, yes worldly ones, I do know that the cupcake cake is not exactly the freshest idea on the block, but it is to me since I never really considered doing it before. I guess I just thought it was a bit gimmicky and, well...why? 'Cos it's easy man! That's why! And easy- that always works for me.
PS: I have a party coming up on Friday. I cannot tell you how much of a comfort it is to me to know of the cupcake cake at this slightly insane time of year. The cupcake cake will be my salvation.
PPS: BONUS TIP: When I frantically called Tiffany looking for something to put my cupcake Ghost on, something I would not mind never getting back (my taped together cereal boxes just weren't cutting it), she offered me a Priority Mail box. Perfection! I plan to cover a few with foil and keep them for just such future occasions. Don't you wish your neighbour had stuff like mine?

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