Daycare Birthday Fun

  

That was a lot of red food colouring
 to make Elmo the right colour!



A few years ago, I had a lot of fun making birthday cakes and treats for a friend's son.  That little boy is now 6 ... soon to be 7, his birthday is in November ... and he just had some minor surgery today.  It seemed a good reason to add another story to the cake adventures.

 For his second birthday, his mom asked me to make a cake that they could take to his daycare.  I don't use character cake pans very often anymore (making too many stars can make a person a little crazy), but sometimes it's the right choice.  Elmo for a bunch of daycare kids seemed practically perfect.  The cake underneath was my favourite apple spice cake. Since my friend's son is lactose intolerant, I made the icing using vanilla flavoured soy milk.

The next year, the daycare had decided that only Rice Krispie squares were allowed as cakes were apparently too much mess.  Plain Rice Krispie squares seemed like not nearly enough fun to celebrate such a cute little guy's third birthday, so I decided to get a little inventive.  Take some Rice Krispie squares, and some royal icing to act as glue.  Add some brightly coloured fondant to make tires and headlights and a little imagination. I'll let the picture speak for itself... 

I only took pictures so I'd remember how I made them,
hence the fondant mat and icing bag

Since his dad was away serving in the military that year and their only other family lives on another continent, we decided it would be fun to have a big cake to celebrate his birthday with his church family.
  

Did I mention that this was the fall after I took
the 3rd Wilton course and was having a lot of fun
with fondant?

By the time birthday number four came around, the daycare had decided that cupcakes were allowed for birthday treats.  That's the first time I made the cupcake pizza.  I delivered the pizza to their house the night before they were taking it to daycare.  His response when I opened the lid of the pizza box, three simple words:

 

I was so amazed when the local pizza shop
let me have a box for free and didn't think I was
totally crazy when I asked if I could buy one!

"I like that."

The wide eyes of wonder and a few softly spoken words from a normally taciturn child made that pizza one of my favourite decorated cakes ever.

Oh, in case you're wondering what happened to five and six, his dad was transferred to a different base and now they live in another province.  It's a little expensive for daycare treats to figure out how to send them across the country =