Don't Forget the Birthday Cake

Several years ago I got tired of buying expensive specialty birthday cakes and decided I would try my hand at making my live-ins special day cakes...now that I think of it...this was around the time that instead of buying one specialty cake a year I was going to have to buy three!!  Economics, that's what it was, economincs...

I took a cake decorating class when Live-In #1 was a baby, not because I wanted to make birthday cakes, but because I thought maybe this could be a business for me...I quickly found out - Cakes Were No Business For This Girl...

But because of this whim I had a few supplies in my cabinets and was able to begin with cupcakes for Live-In #2's 1st Birthday...Mickey Mouse: cupcakes frosted red with store bought Mickey decorations and 2nd Birthday...Basketballs and Baseballs (don't remember if there were footballs and I don't want to go grab the scrapbook right now) of course the baseballs were my favorite - I actually had to use a little of what I learned in my cake decorating class for these.

Then Live-In #1 decided she wanted a Strawberry Shortcake birthday with a Strawberry Shortcake Hat shaped cake...Oh Boy...Thankfully my sister (who could probably have a cake decorating business) came to my rescue and came over to help me make this masterpiece.  Since then, every year I make my kids birthday cake.  They are so excited to see what I come up and are easily pleased. 

Over the years we have had Princess Castles, Trains, Treasure Chest, Baseball Field, Transformers, Star Wars, Beaches, Light Sabors, Football Helmets and just plain Whimsical.  They have been fun, but either they are getting harder or my creative mind is mush...But my Live-In's think I can and should be able to do it all! 

So this year Live-In #3 chose to go to a place called Sky High for his birthday.  This place is a big warehouse type building with HUGE trampolines.  Yes, that was plural.  They have a big trampoline area where the walls are also a trampoline, they have a trampoline that you can jump off of and into a pit of foam and they have a dodge ball trampoline area.  So to go with this theme Live-In #3 wanted a trampoline cake!  I had no idea what I was going to do and all the ideas on the internet included fondant...I don't do fondant...but I finally found a cake I thought I might be able to tackle with regular frosting...

If you are a professional cake decorator or even a semi-pro or kind of pro I know you are cringing right now...but Live-In #3 and his friends liked it...and my mama was proud...and that is all that matters. 

P.S.  It tasted better than it looks...