My sister has four kids, and they all have birthdays in the eight-week span between January 10 and March 6. As if that wasn’t enough celebrating, my sister’s, mom’s, and Granny’s birthdays are in there, too. Seven birthdays in eight weeks. That’s why I specifically didn’t make any New Years resolutions about no sweets or eating healthy.
My sister and her family is living really close-by for a few months, so when birthday season rolled around, I knew we were in for eight straight weeks of my sister’s homemade birthday cakes. When we were growing up, my mom always made delicious, beautiful, homemade cakes for us as kids. My sister and I have done our best to carry on the tradition for our kids. But my sister is raising the bar in the most delicious way.
Each cake, from concept to creation, was homemade. She let the kids pick the theme, and then she went to work doing everything from scratch, including the design. Even though each one was way too pretty to eat, we ate them anyway. And they were so good we didn’t feel bad about it, either.
Gabby Joy’s green and purple horse cake
Gabby, who turned two this year, chose the colors and the theme. My sister made the horses using a technique for writing chocolate like this one.
John Amos’s cow cake
Ellie’s solar system cake
This one, I think, is especially cool and called for an extra amount of creativity and work on my sister’s part. She made a different size cakes, mixed icing for each planet, and even made a 3-D ring for Saturn. We all got to pick which planet we wanted to eat. I arm-wrestled Ellie for the one with the most icing.
Abram’s shark cake
The cake is on a white board, which Abram colored blue, then my sister covered with saran wrap before placing the cake on top.
Abram is a total goofball who loves to tell jokes and is always, always smiling and trying to make everyone around him smile. But he decided to switch it up for this photo.
Want more cakes? Click on…
A bacon-chocolate cake for my mom
Strawberry mousse cupcakes for Mary Virginia’s first birthday
A Lightning McQueen cake for David’s third birthday
A strawberry meringue cake for my mom
A sailboat cake for David’s first birthday
(As I looked through my links, I realized that none of these are for Tom. It’s not because he’s deprived, promise. He just prefers homemade blackberry pie.)
(No need to edit.)
Great title. That is exactly how it feels, like a parade of cakes.
And for the chocolate: I don’t temper it because I hate candy thermometers and don’t care if it is bendy instead of snappy. I just put some choc chips in a baggie and microwave until it’s mostly melted. Then I snip off the tip of the bag. Also, if you use wax paper you can put your design underneath and trace it. Should I….start blogging again and make a chocolate tutorial? 🙂
Amanda – these are the cutest cakes ever! Thanks for sharing them with us at Inspire Me Monday at Create With Joy – I’m thrilled to share that you are one of our featured guests this week! #168
Would love to make this cake for my son’s birthday.
How did you cut the pieces to have it come out like this?
This shark cake is awesome. Do you have a blog on how the pieces were cut to make the shape?
no, i’m sorry! i wish i did! my sister made it and i just admired (and photographed!) her handiwork.
What cake pans did you use for the shark cake. My grandson has been asking for a shark cake since his last birthday. I really like the way this one looks. Can you share?