Birthday Cake Bonanza

So awhile ago I had posted about making my son's birthday cakes, yet as my baby sister's 30th birthday bonanza weekend draws near, I realized I never posted pictures of the cakes I made.  So here it goes!

So the first party was for him and his best friend Hannah (whose birthday is a week before him) in town for all our local friends to come to with a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme. 

First I made the mouse ears with milk chocolate and black food gel

Then I made the glove, shoe garage, and slide out of white chocolate and food gel (the black parts are milk chocolate and black food gel).

I made the base of the clubhouse out of rice crispie treats and covered it with homemade marshmallow fondant.  I then put the chocolate mickey head on top, and secured it with the sparkler candles.

Then came time to assemble.  The cake base was a homemade almond cake with strawberry filling covered with green marshmallow fondant.  I made the stepping stones and fence out of white chocolate, piped some green frosting for bushes and some reeses pieces for roses and just assembled it all together...now to hope it makes it to the party in one piece!

 

We made it in one piece!  It was so heavy, but so very yummy!

The next party was in South Florida with almost all our family and friends, and it was a Toy Story theme.  I didn't take as many photos, but I'm glad I got this one.  This is the bed frame made out of milk chocolate.  I actually found photos of Andy's bed frame from the movie and copied every little detail...which I was so proud of.

But unfortunately, as you can see from the finished product, it didn't make the drive down.  Thankfully the rest of the cake did.  The bottom layer was chocolate cake with raspberry filling (all homemade of course), and I made little wooden planks out of marshmallow fondant and put them around the cake to make a corral for Woody's gang.  The top cake I made to match Andy's bed from the movie (minus the bed frame now...so sad) and it was almond cake with strawberry filling, covered with marshmallow fondant.  The final touch was the silver "claw" I made out of white chocolate that had the alien dangling from it over Buzz's head.

Overall, it still turned out great, and I got lots of compliments on it (and it tasted amazing as well!).

Oh, and don't think I was going to forget my husband for his birthday.  The poor guy was born on December 25th, so he never gets to do anything special for his birthday.  Since he shares it with one of his favorite musicians, Jimmy Buffett, I decided to surprise him with some cupcakes that we brought with us to a friend's Christmas dinner.

I called them my "Cheeseburgers in Paradise".  I made 18 regular vanilla cupcakes and 6 brown dyed vanilla cupcakes (b/c my husband hates chocolate...but that's for another blog to vent about).  I cut the regular ones in half, and the brown ones in thirds.  I placed the brown ones on the bottom half of the regular ones, topped it with red "ketchup" frosting, yellow "mustard" frosting, green "lettuce" coconut shreds, and yellow "cheese" marshmallow fondant.  Then I put the top on, sprinkled it with some raw sugar for the sesame seeds, and voila...cheeseburger cupcakes!  When we arrived at the party, people thought I brought sliders...they were all shocked to find out they were cupcakes.  Big hit...and again so yummy.