Birthday Cakes and a Prize Winning Pie

August is always a busy month for us with vacations, picnics, and the kids birthdays just 10 days apart. I couldn't let it come and go though without sharing some of the cakes and pies I made last month. Here's McKenna's birthday cake:

 She wanted a "rainbow" party so I made this cake using 3 circular cakes - two stacked and one cut in half and then placed on top of the other two, then propped up with marshmallow "clouds" and decorated with Skittles.

Then, two weeks later I made this campfire cake for Sage.

It's composed of a rectangular cake cut into 3 "logs", iced and stacked and topped with 3 fondant "flames". My boy is 10 now. 10! Double digits! He had a camping-themed party complete with fire pit, roasted weenies, s'mores, and friends camping in our backyard.

Another great thing about August is all the fruit in bloom - blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, apples, rhubarb - and that's just in out backyard! My husband's company had a pie contest and I won second place for my AppStrawRhuBlackBlue Pie:

This picture was taken after it had been sampled by all the picnickers, hence the mess. I won a $25 Visa gift card and a ribbon. Not bad considering most of the ingredients were free. I've been making pies all summer and sticking them in the deep freezer to save them for special occasions this winter.

Oh summer, you were warm and sweet like a fresh-baked pie, and we gobbled you up.

How to make a Bowser Shell Birthday Cake

For those of you who aren't familiar with Super Mario Bros., this is Bowser:

He's the bad guy. After months of deliberation, Sage decided he wanted a Bowser shell-shaped birthday cake. The night before his party I made it. Here's how:

First, I mixed 2 boxes of cake mix and poured the batter into a cake pan, a larger pie pan, and a shallow metal mixing bowl. (Note: Bowl-shaped cakes take longer to bake.) Then I let them cool separately. Here they are before the icing:

Next, I iced the bottom layer with whitie icing...

 and the other two with green...

 

and stacked them again,

and smoothed out the icing.

Now for the spikes. I used sugar cones that I coated with light yellow icing.

It was and experiment that kind of failed at first, but I got the hang of it. (Note: Don't just try to ram the cone in. Carve circle with a spoon first and then slowly push the cone in deep.)

Bower has 10 spikes - 4 down the middle/top and three on each side.

 

(Note: Have extra cones available, there may be some casualties.)

Next, I filled a freezer bag with orange icing, cut a hole in the corner of the bag,

and squeezed an orange ring around each spike at the base.

I dyed some shaved coconut green and scattered it on the tray to look like grass, and here's the end result:

I defeated Bowser!

We all had a Yellow Submarine birthday party

A few months ago Sage discovered our Yellow Submarine DVD and was fascinated. When we asked him what kind of birthday party he wanted, he chose a "Yedow (his pronunciation) Submarine Birthday Party." We obliged. Here's the invitation Erik made:


And I made the cake:


At Sage insistance we played "Pin the looker thingy on the Yellow Submarine":


He also wanted to lead a marching band (which he did with his friends around our yard) and a have a pinata. Erik and I tried to make him one the night before but a few hours before the party was to start it was still soggy, so we went out and bought this one:


And here he is blowing our his candles:


That night when I was getting him ready for bed, I noticed that he was practicing holding four fingers on his hand. He lifted one, then two, then three, and then slowly let the pinky go and stood there studying his four fingers. I said, "Hey Sage, How old are you now?" and he smiled and held up his hand and said, "Four!"