Saturday, December 3, 2011

The Ninja cake

Creative Guy turns 7 in a week or so.  His birthday party was today.  It was a Ninja party.  He requested a Lego Ninjago cake.  Specifically Kai, the red Ninja.  I believe I have created a monster.

So I did my research and found a site where someone had created a great Kai cake.  Then found a site that had an outline of a Lego Man.  Awesome.  Then realized that if I was going to do this cake right, I needed to use fondant.  It's not a super easy material to work with, it's expensive to purchase and many people don't like the texture or taste of it.  I had found recipes online for homemade fondant using marshmallows and so last week I made my own.  It was super easy to make.  I waited until there was no one home so they didn't see the complete mess I made of all the counters with powered sugar everywhere.  But it came out well, if a little sticky.  Still have to work on that.

I was going to bake the cake on Thursday but the power was out and I had the boys with me and it just wasn't working.  Friday I schlepped all the stuff down to Old Church and used their kitchen to bake the cakes and then put it together.  I made a yellow cake from a recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook circa 1970, with the addition of a box of vanilla pudding to add some moisture.  It came out sooooooooo goooooooodddddd.  Then I found a recipe online for a strawberry whipped cream filling.  Yummmmmm.  I had to ice it all with a buttercream frosting to make the fondant stick, but I think I will see if I can figure out something else for that.

Anyway, long story, many hours later the cake actually came out well.  I had red and black mottled hands for a little while after mixing in the coloring and some of the fondant tore but overall it was a huge hit.  Not perfect but awesome.  Creative Guy was really excited about it too...which makes all of the project worth it!  I am especially proud of the star/fire guy on the sash.  That was all freehand...I sweat over that one.


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