Slaying the dragon

I'm not sure how it's possible (parents always start birthday posts that way, don't they?), but my baby girl turned five this weekend. My little girl is a warrior princess: she loves everything princessy, pink, and sparkly, but her favorite princesses are Eowyn (Lord of the Rings), Leia (Star Wars), and Merida (Brave). While dressed in fancy princess dresses, she climbs trees, shoots bows and arrows, and runs from Darth Vader.

When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she first said princesses (she loves looking at the Disney princess cakes at the big grocery stores). Then she wanted a castle. And finally, she settled on a red dragon. (Smaug - from the Hobbit - is her favorite and has been her Halloween costume for the past two years.)

There are many pictures of dragon cakes out there, and many seem to follow the same basic pattern. I followed this set of instructions. The birthday girl requested "vanilla cake," which I took to mean yellow. I asked on Twitter for a good, sturdy, yummy yellow cake, and my friend Rebecca recommended Rosie's golden cake (recipe can be found here). I used my 9" rounds, and although the recipe said to bake them for 35 minutes, by 32 minutes, they were already very done. Didn't matter; the cake was moist and delicious. And (most importantly for me!) very sturdy.

I used the same ATK 7-minute frosting that I used for the little guy. It makes a ton and the kids love the marshmallowy flavor. Despite a lot of red gel food coloring, the frosting never got darker than a deep pink. It's okay; the little girl loves pink, and she easily adjusted her expectations.

The girl and her daddy were in charge of decorating design. She picked the colors for all of the pieces, and she helped Daddy design the flames and wings. Given our recent unprocessed journey, I was quite distressed to spend so much time in the snack aisle looking for decorations: luckily, I didn't have to buy too much. I found a multi-colored fruit slice pack, which I used for the claws, eyes, and eye brows. The chocolate-covered graham cookies were perfect for the spikes. And I found a multi-pack of fruit roll-ups and fruit-by-the-foot, which became the wings and flames. We already had chocolate chips (eye balls) and kisses (nostrils).

The cake was a huge hit; it was definitely my biggest cake-decorating success. The guests all loved the dragon, and the kids had fun requesting body parts, starting with the birthday girl, who wanted the head. And I'm happy to have a new no-fail cake-building yellow cake to add to my chocolate cake and frosting. Happy birthday, sweet girl!

Lego cake & a mother's love

I'm not sure how, but somehow, my little guy is turning six. When I asked him several weeks ago what kind of cake he wanted for his (first ever!) friend birthday party, he responded with, "A weapon's case with weapons on it like a sword and shield and ax." ??! No idea where this stuff comes from. When I explained that that probably wasn't likely, he decided, "How about a blue six-studded Lego block?" Hm...well, that I could probably do.

I did some research, but couldn't find much, until I stumbled on this article from the Kitchn: How to make an anatomically correct Lego cake. I was really impressed with the math and research that went into it...but I wasn't that concerned with the precise measurements of my cake. The one piece of advice I did take was the idea of using mini-muffins for the studs of the Legos.

Following my friend Di's lead, instead of making a sheet cake and trying to slice it in half horizontally, I decided to bake the cake in two jelly roll pans. I was nervous that a 9x13 wouldn't be big enough (we were expecting up to 20 people, depending on how many parents stayed at the party), and then I found two 15.5"x10.5" pans. Perfect!

I settled on Dorie's devil's food cake (you can find the recipe here), remembering that it was sturdy, moist, and yummy the last time I made it. I made a full recipe, divided into the two jelly roll pans, plus 18 mini muffins.

I asked the little guy what kind of frosting he wanted in between the layers, and he decided on chocolate. Knowing how rich the cake was, I wanted a light chocolate frosting and found this recipe, which was just the thing. Unfortunately, I only had one stick of butter at room temperature, so I made a half recipe; I wish I would've had a bit more, but it was enough to make a thin layer in between the cake layers.

Looking for a stable, easy-to-color frosting, with a light taste and texture that wouldn't compete with the chocolates, I decided to try seven-minute frosting. I used ATK's recipe, adding blue food coloring with the vanilla at the end. I was impressed with how easy the frosting was to make, and as promised, it tasted very marshmallowy, and was a huge hit. As I tried to frost each individual stud without getting too many crumbs in the frosting, I said to my little guy, "This is proof of a mother's love." :)

The cake was a huge hit; even I couldn't think of any "it's good but"s. My mom, brother, and sister couldn't stop raving, and the little guy begged and begged for a second piece (I didn't cave). When I asked the birthday boy if the cake lived up to his expectations, he said, "It was perfectly excellent."