Birthday Cake!

The one thing that I did manage to do despite all that's been going on was to bake a cake for Scott's 3rd birthday party. A while ago he told us he wanted a green Jeep, so I decided to make him a Jeep cake. It turned out to be a bit of an undertaking, and I lost faith that it would turn out well at all in the beginning, but when it was all said and done I think it turned out pretty well! It could've been better, and I know a few things to do differently if I ever do it again, but for a 3 year old I'd say it was pretty perfect. Scott was sure excited about it, and it tasted pretty good too. It had a LOT of icing on it, but what toddler doesn't need a little sugar in their day? :)

I baked 2 sheet cakes and then shaved the tops of them a bit to make them level. One was placed on top of an upside-down 13x9 pan as the base of the body. The other sheet cake I cut in half and stacked on top of the first cake. I then covered it all with white icing so that the crumbs would stick to it and not show through on the final product. I also shaped it some with icing. Jeeps are pretty square, but they do have some shape to them. I then dyed more icing and piped the detailing on top of the base colors. It's insanely difficult to dye white icing to a good "Jeep green", so I just settled for the green I had after a while. It's also impossible to get a good black, so the top ended up being more dark blue than black, but oh well. The tires are chocolate covered donuts (to look like mud), and the stuff around the cake is what I shaved off of the tops of them crumbled up to look like dirt. Scott helped me spread the crumbs out.... it was about all I'd let him help with for fear he'd mess up my hard work. :)

I'm still recovering from skipping my nap for 2 days to work on the cake, but it was worth it. Scott was really excited about it, and I'd do anything to see that little shy grin on his face. :)

Here's the finished product: