Easy Mermaid Birthday Cake

This year, my newly 5 year old, Willow opted for a Mermaid themed party! After I convinced her that she couldn't have a Unicorn theme two years in a row that is! She had never had a BIG party before, so this was her year. We made it a joint party with one of her close friends, hired a hall, invited their whole kinder class and more and had games, craft activities the whole lot!

Sharing a party with another family is great, sharing the party work load worked out so well for us! I volunteered myself to take on the task of the cakes! Because I secretly love stressing myself out about making them perfect and spending half the day in the kitchen!

But, actually these cakes were relatively simple and looked really cute! I probably would have made it even easier for myself if I had some of the proper baking utensils, like one of those handy metal scrapers for the butter cream, but hey.. it worked!

For the cakes, I used the same recipe I always use, the simple yet effective Butter Cake recipe from Taste.com.au , always a hit! Basically, this recipe makes 1 cake layer in an 8 inch or 9 inch cake pan.

For the butter cream, its a mixture between guessing and reading too many recipes, I still haven't perfected the butter-cream, it is next on my to do list! If anyone has a fail proof recipe hit me up! But, this time what I did do right was to invest in some gorgeous gel colours for the butter cream, rather than trying to create something from the basic supermarket colouring. I used Ameri-color Violet and Dusty Rose and they both turned out gorgeous!

My favourite part of this cake though was making the little fondant Mermaid Tails. I haven't used fondant much before, mostly because I don't like the taste of it and I've been a little worried it wouldn't work out. But, I am here to let you know its actually pretty easy! Especially if you are good a playing with play-doh! I purchased the silicone tail mould/mold from Ebay. The tails were really just a matter of rolling the fondant around in my hands until it got warm and therefore soft enough to mold. I experimented with the two colours mixing them together before and after they were in the mold, and ended up with a range of cute colour combos. After ensuring they were pressed down enough in the mold, and removing excess fondant from the top and around the edges I peeled them out, and gently stuck the skewers almost all the way to the end and left them to harden. Here is a great You Tube tutorial that I watched before making them : How to make fondant mermaid tails

I then pulled out this champagne coloured edible shimmer I had purchased, and brushed it onto the tails with one of the kids unused paint brushes! And WHAT a massive difference it made, they became all shimmery and gorgeous! You can see the before and after shimmer pictures below!

Some of the other cakes I've made for my kids birthdays are :

Easy Toothless Dragon Icecream Cake

Easy Miffy Birthday Cake

Pastel Layered Ice Cream cake with White Chocolate Bark

Easy Sprinkles First Birthday Cake

When we were on our travels earlier this year (which I will blog about soon), our littlest one turned One! There was no extravagant party, and just a few small presents, because thats all we could fit in our luggage. But, I did however, make a cake! I didn't really think it was fair to buy him a cake when the other kids both had very thought out homemade special Birthday cakes. So we went for something simple. And apparently naked cakes are all the rage, and so that just helped make icing this cake even easier!! Easy birthday cakes are becoming my specialty!

Once again, I used my trusted Butter Cake recipe, the one that I've used for every one of my kids cakes, except for the ice cream cakes of cours, and it never disappoints. (You can find it HERE ). I made butter cream icing. Placed a number 1 template that I cut out of a sheet of baking paper and then covered the whole thing with sprinkles, or as us Aussies like to refer to them as 100's and 1000's, and then soooo carefully peeled the paper template off!!! Really easy, but I quite liked the simplicity of it!

Archer was so excited! But, he wasn't quite sure what to do with the cake and ended up smashing up most of his piece into pieces and then rubbed it all over himself! But, at least he enjoyed it! So did all the other kids, because you know CAKE!!!!

Check out some of my other Easy Birthday Cakes here:

Easy Toothless Dragon Ice Cream Cake

Easy Miffy Cake

Pastel Layered Ice Cream Cake with White Chocolate Bark

Pastel Layered Ice Cream cake with White Chocolate Bark

Pastel Layered Ice-Cream cake with White Chocolate Bark

A few months ago my baby girl turned 3! My gorgeous Elsa obsessed baby girl, who really isn't a baby anymore at all! One thing about baking cakes, is that often the kids eat the icing and leave the rest of the cake. Maybe it is just my baking. But, I know that ice-cream cakes never go uneaten! Being time poor and just exhausted from being up all through the night with a baby, easy was definitely on the agenda! Its amazing that I even managed to make a cake at all!

This one was really easy, mix each layer with some food dye, freeze for a few hours and then do the next layer! I added a layer of crushed oreo to make it a little more fun (and delicious)!

The shards on the top are made from white chocolate bark! Which is as simple as melting down white chocolate and spreading it on a baking paper lined baking tray! We decorated it with some pink shiny bits and pieces and then popped it in the fridge. Once it is set, I just used a knife to make the sharper points and then, stuck it in the top of the cake! 

So so simple! But it was a hit with the kids, and I think it looks kind of pretty!

Easy Miffy Birthday Cake

This year for Willows 2nd Birthday, I made her a Miffy bunny cake! She does love rabbits after all, and Rabbits don't get much cuter than Miffy! Plus, Miffy's face is really, really simple! The hardest part of the whole cake is cutting the bunny ears out. But, I found an easy way to do that too!

This cake is really easy. Its perfect if anyone is embarking on their first child's birthday cake! I know, it can be a pretty daunting task! I have now successfully made 5 birthday cakes, and I have another one to make in about a months time, and Ez is requesting a dinosaur...eeep!

For all of the 5 kids birthday cakes I have ever made, I have used the same really simple butter cake recipe, I'm not trying to be all fancy, butter cakes are a simple classic, here is link to the basic cake recipe that I use. BUTTER CAKE RECIPE . For this cake I needed to double the recipe. some for the head and then some for the ears!

I used a round cake pan for Miffy's head. And then a smaller square tin for her ears, but you could use another round tin if you have one on hand, or if you only have one cake pan!

Once I baked the cakes and let them cool it was time to embark on making the shapes. I put some baking paper on a bread board and taped it down underneath, and then placed the round cake at the bottom. I then used a sharp knife and cut it a little at the top and bottom of her face to make her head a little more of an oval shape.

For Miffy's ears, I found this template on Pinterest HERE opened it on another page and printed it out at 250% the size, I tried a few other sizes, but this was perfect. I placed the template on the square cake and cut around it with a sharp knife. Then I picked up the ears and moved them to the covered breadboard and put them in place! Thankfully they stayed together.

Next was time for the icing. I just used a simple Cream Cheese icing recipe with a bit of lemon for some extra zing! I'm no expert in icing cakes, but i put most of it on with a spatula and then spread it around to even it out with the back of a tablespoon.

Then, for her eyes and mouth I used liquorice. I just sliced the liquorice about 3mm thick in a round shape and stuck on her eyes, and then for her mouth sliced thin pieces and crossed them for her mouth.

Like I said, easy!!!

Some of my other cakes:
Easy Toothless Dragon Cake

And yes, we made Miffy cookies too! These little cookie/sandwich cutters I got on Amazing for less that $3 and Free shipping! Steal!

Easy 'Toothless' Dragon Cake

Ezra had his 3rd Birthday this week, and his cake request was a Toothless ice cream cake. If you haven't been introduced to the How To Train Your Dragon movies yet, then I'll explain that Toothless is the main dragon. Ez is nuts about this movie, hence the request for a Toothless cake for his birthday.

I have been pretty busy the last couple of weeks with the shop launching and everything that comes along with running a business from home with two toddlers, so I didn't have the time or energy for an elaborate cake making session, so I did it the easy way, But, I think it looked pretty good and the main thing was that Ezra Loved it! He was so excited when he saw the big cake and of course the dragon.There was no way I wanted to try and make a dragon out of actually sponge cake and icing, so I was secretly really glad that he'd asked for an Ice cream cake!

All I did was buy two tubs of different flavour ice creams (I bought mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream) wait for them to start to melt and then layer them in a cake tin, taking time I between to re-freeze so your layers actually work! The next day, I pulled it out of the freezer, removed the cake pan and put it on a plate, then added some Flake pieces (the small pre-cut ones that come in the little bag) around the edge, then drizzled some ice magic (I haven't used that stuff since I was a kid, so many memories!) around the edges and did a swirly pattern on the top, I crumbled some flake to make a standing pad for the dragon! I popped it back in the freezer until cake time!

We bought a Toothless figurine from Toys R Us because I am not an expert at icing creations! Plus he gets to keep the figure!

Anyway, if you have a Dragon fan in your house,and you are time poo and looking for an easy cake, then I hope I could help!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What I learnt about Fondant with Appliances Online

Last week I had my first proper daytime outing since having Willow, on my own! I know, it's taken me long enough. I've had times where I had ducked down to the shops, or gone out at night, but this is the first time in 5 whole months that I left both my kids with their Nan for half a day. And, it was glorious. Just to get the chance to do something fun and not have to worry about changing nappies, hungry babies or finding dummies. I could carry a small purse and I was free to do as I pleased! That alone made for a great morning.

So, with my little taste of freedom, what did I do?