Cake Talk

A long time ago, in this same galaxy, I wrote a post about all the cakes I had made for Spencer's birthday parties.  I just checked.  I wrote it in September, 2011.  Elliott had not yet been born so he had had zero cakes and Spencer had only had four birthdays.  

This post is a follow up to that post.  Spencer has had four more birthdays and Elliott has had four, so we have eight more cakes to discuss.

The theme to Spencer's first birthday was "one".  It was a lame theme.  I basically just bought anything and everything that said "one" and "first birthday".  I made individual car cakes and stoplight cupcakes for his party.  They don't really go with the theme but it made sense in my head at the time.  The car cakes took forever to decorate.  Then, during the night, Ginger snuck onto the table and ate two or three of them.  Jerk.

I didn't know about smash cakes at the time because it was 2008 and Facebook and Pinterest had not yet told me AAAAAAAAAL the ways in which I was failing as a mother, so Spencer's first bite of cake was one of those cars.

The theme of Spencer's second birthday was "trains".  He wore conductor overalls and I made a candy filled train cake.  This was probably the cake that sucked the most to make.  It took forever.  I still haven't recovered from it.  I pretty much hate this cake to this day.

I also did three platters of cupcakes. 

This is still the only party we didn't have at home. We were in the process of moving and both houses were wrecks so we did it at my parent's house in Tucson. 

Spencer's third birthday was a Mickey Mouse theme.  I actually made two cakes, put them side by side on a board and frosted both of them to look like one big cake.  The clubhouse was a bank I ordered on amazon. 

Spencer's fourth birthday was a Thomas the Train theme.  I was pregnant with Elliott, tired and in no mood for elaborate baking.  I made a chocolate layer cake and used red vines to "pipe" the cake and make a track under Thomas.

Candy Land was the theme of Spencer's fifth birthday.  I remember I started decorating the cake around midnight. It wasn't until maybe the next year that I realized you have to bake the cake two nights before the party so you can decorate it the night before.  Baking and decorating in the same night is just stupid.  I'm a slow learner.

Spencer's GOLDEN birthday was the theme for his sixth. I made a layer cake.  I cannot remember what flavor it was.  Then I sprayed it with edible gold spray paint, bombed it with gold sprinkles and pressed gold ribbon into the sides.

We invited about 60 people to this party so we rounded out the dessert menu with golden cupcakes,

and platters of cookies.  There were brownies too, but they didn't make the photo. 

Spencer's seventh birthday was Mario themed.  He wanted a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting.  Simple.  Done.

This past year we had a Star Wars theme for Spencer's eighth birthday.  He decided, quite randomly, a month before his party that he didn't like regular cake and wanted just ice cream instead.  We compromised on a chocolate cheesecake.  I had the idea to use this Jabba for his cake since he got it for Christmas the year before.  There was wax paper in between all the characters and the cake. 

Moving on to Elliott.

He had a snowman theme for his first birthday.  I started planning it when he was in the hospital with sepsis, so I had 50 weeks to knock out all the details.

I made a coconut cake in the shape of a snowman and also a bunch (like 3 dozen) of cupcakes to go with it.  Some of the cupcakes had snowman cookies on the top.

And some of the cupcakes had little candy snowmen on them.

I also knew about things like smash cakes at this point, so Elliott got one.

Elliott's second birthday was a dinosaur theme. This cake was fun to make because it was supposed to look rough and unpolished.  I made a cake and then made a little loaf cake to go on top.  Then I frosted them and used crushed graham crackers and crushed nilla wafers to make dirt/sand.  The rocks were edible rock candies.

There were also dinosaur pudding cake cups with rock candy.

Elliott's third birthday was a pirate theme.  I made this treasure chest cake.  It looks elaborate and it took a while to decorate, but it really wasn't that hard.  Mostly because I finally understood about the whole bake one night and decorate the next concept.  It was a little tricky to cut.

And finally, Elliott's fourth birthday was a Snoopy theme.  I made and frosted a chocolate cake for the base.  Then I frosted a whole gingerbread house and sprayed it with red edible spray paint.  I made the door out of melted chocolate chips and the cartoon lines are chocolate licorice.  I just threw that licorice away this week actually.  I also made another sheet cake for the party in case this cake wasn't enough.  But it was.  We only cut two pieces of that cake and they were for people to take home for family members.  Michael ended up taking the sheet cake to work to share with his co-workers.

I also made gingerbread bone cookies that were very popular.

The kids and I recently came up with an arrangement with each other regarding future birthdays.  They will continue with selecting a theme each year and I will continue making an appropriately themed cake each year until they are ten.  After ten, no more themes and just regular cakes.  

Spencer has said he wants Angry Birds for nine and Tranformers for ten.  I have a great idea for an angry birds cake that involves a lot of kit kat bars. I have eight more months to plan and execute it.  Elliott has said he wants super heros for five and Mickey Mouse for six.  He's pretty serious about the super heros, but I think the Mickey will change in the next 23 months.