Caly's cake

Caly is having her 14th birthday in a few weeks and we're having the party tomorrow before all her friends scatter for the summer. So I'm doing a cake today. She wants a black crocodile with bright green and blue trim. She didn't want fondant because she loves buttercream.

So far we have the cakes baked (three 9 inch by 9 inch square cakes, each one using a box of cake mix). There's devil's food (her favorite), red velvet (my favorite), and vanilla (her best friend's favorite). I've laid all the cakes in a row and trimmed and cut and made a crocodile shape. Then we mixed up a ton of very dark grey buttercream and crumb-coated with that. It's in the fridge setting up now. I've got some tubes of black frosting that we are probably going to put on top of the dark grey BUT when we mixed up the grey it had a really cool metallic look to it so she may decide to just go with that. We'll see once it's on. We also have blue and green sugar, blue and green sprinkles, and some blue frosting in a tube. I'm not exactly sure how those are going to be applied, but I'm leaving it up to her.

So far, it looks pretty good. Well, it looks good considering that it's in the early stages. I think it will turn out nice. And I know (because we tasted the trimmings) that it tastes great. So even if it looks bad she and her friends will be happy.

I'll take pics once it's done. Right now it just looks like a croc shaped blob.

Sounds like a very unusual birthday cake wish for a 14th year old... or anyone, I think... can't wait to see pictures.

What a smart idea to have the birthday party before the friends scatter for summer break.

Red Velvet is my favorite too, yummy. I think it's cool she wanted something different, it's always more memorable that way. A crocodile sounds really cool..can't wait to see it!

BTW curse you for making me want Red Velvet cake now!

Well the cake is mostly done, and the kitchen is of course a wreck. There is still a ton to do before the party and we are out of time. But it'll have to do.

The kids are killing me again. Every time I turn around Caly is slacking off and Zaven is picking at her over little things that mean nothing. I know he's frustrated with her (I am too) but his attitude is making it worse. Plus she's now using his fussing as an excuse to goof off. It's like she's thinking, well I deserve a break because he's being so mean.

Anyhow, I could smack her upside the head tonight. I hate that every time I do some kind of party for them they quit working once the invitations are out and I can't easily tell them no we're not having it. But I'm thinking one year I WILL do that.

Want pics of the cake, Bayley wants an alligator on her "hawaiian luau cake"....must be the age.
Kristin pulled the slacking and not helping thing once, I called everyone and cancelled the party...but I am mean that way

I am waiting to see pics!!

My kids do that to the other kids when they think one is getting special treatment. just pick non stop, which of course, makes that kid not helpful at all and play the 'everyone hates me card' ....

And I've not cancled a party yet, (cause we dont do friend parties) but, I have seen the patterns of them not doing their stuff, or being rude or just laying it all down, and got them geared up wanting to do something, and when they dont come through I dont either. luckily it hasnt bit me in the ass yet, as usually its something I made up just to prove I"m in charge. LOL

The slacking off never really ends. You just have to lay down the law once in a while and remind them who's boss. DS came home from work and went directly to the kitchen and I told him so sorry, but the kitchen was closed until he had collected and washed all the dishes he had stashed upstairs. And I let him know I had been up there and knew exactly how many there were. Bitching and moaning and But I'm so hungry! YYSSW Just do it. I had cooked a pork shoulder and he had to smell it while he worked, too.

I did the same thing to Bayley this morning, she wanted breaky and I wanted dishes....she is NOT supposed to eat in her room, but she had a friend over and they did. I did have to hear all about what a terrible mean horrible parent i am...

Mine are not allowed to eat, drink nothing anywhere except the kitchen.

and mine are also not allowed to eat or drink before the animals are fed and watered. and God forbid I find an animal without water. the kids dont get to drink either.

I fiqure its only fair...

I just hate the bickering that mine do when they know its someones day. My boys have literly whined about Rayley and her pink hair for 3 days. how she gets everything, and how she gets to do this or that. I finally told them, one more freakin word, and they were getting a pink stripe. damn their daddy and damn them. I was TIRED of it.

Of course BR comes up with all this crap that I need to treat them this way or that way, or let them do this or that (liek stay up till 10), and he isnt home. he doesnt deal with them AT ALL. he wants to be. dont get me wrong, but he works 6 days a week, 15-17 hours a day. So he thinks I should be easier on them out of his own guilt. I cant be. they would run over this house and me like a tank. they already run the place. I'm not the best, but they can tell that to their therapist...

You guys are the best! I love that I can bitch about my kids here and no one comes on and says how theirs are perfect and I'm just a crappy mom if mine aren't too.

Mine ARE good kids. But they don't always act like it, LOL. I just try to remember that they don't do soooo many of the things I see other kids do. They don't talk back, don't bully, don't smoke or drink or do drugs. NOT that kids who do automatically have bad parents or are worthless kids. Just saying that all in all mine are pretty good and if the worst they do is get on my nerves every now and then than I have nothing to complain about.

And after I posted I told Caly that if she didn't get in gear her BFF couldn't spend the night after the party. I didn't want to cancel the party because that punishes all her friends. But I figured that I didn't mind cancelling the sleep over since her BFF would still at least be coming to the party. And Caly did get in gear and help after that. And Zaven told me he was sorry that he did the same thing she was doing at his party last year. He said he was gonna try to not do it this year. And he's been working hard at trying to actually listen to me and Scott and learn from us and take our advice so I think he might just do it.

I will post pics as soon as I can find the camera, LOL. The frosting didn't turn out completely black. It's like a really dark grey. But I ran out of the Wilton's paste coloring and if I added any more of the regular liquid coloring it would have gotten too runny. That paste is the bomb!

The reason she picked a crocodile is that when they were little, I used to have Zaven and Caly a joint birthday party. Their birthdays are only 3 weeks apart and they have most of the same friends (or she'd be friends with a girl and Zaven friends with the girl's older brother) and of course all the same relatives were coming. But when they were about 5 and 8 they decided it wasn't an actual birthday party because it wasn't either one of their birthdays. So they decided to make up a 'holiday' and they picked Crocodile Day because they loved Steve Irwin. So since Caly's party wasn't actually on her birthday this year, she decided to make it a croc cake for Crocodile Day. Only she really loves black now so she picked a black croc.

It looks more like a gator than a croc. It did have a thinner snout but the icing makes it look wider.

I wish I were good at cleaning up the edges more. I think that's why you do fondant or piping. But she didn't want fondant. Also, in person you can see that we textured the frosting to look like scales. In the picture it just looks messy but in real life it looks scaly. And it's huge. It takes up the whole shelf in the fridge. We used the lid of an under-the-bed storage box as a board. It's see through so it looks like it's just sitting on the shelf but it's not.

You did great on the carving! adn the eyes are SOOO cool looking and so bright!!

I wish we could see the scales, Ihate when you cant see the details like that.

The cakeboards having spots on them have been my biggest obsticle. I never know how to fix it. Sometimes I put easter grass aroudn it. LOL

On square cakes, from here on out I'm gonna strip fondant on there,, even if they are not fondant cakes.

Thats where the 'cut to exact size' board comes in that you lay on a cake board. But its hard to do sometimes.

But I really do like it!! I just am drawn back to the eye each time I look!!

He looks evil, Karen! Looks like he's stalking someone. It turned out great, he looks sparkly or metallic.

Well Done!

Thanks, guys! I kind of like the evil looking eye, too. And Caly's happy and that's what matters.

Chelle, I cheated a little bit on the cake board. I put down parchment paper and when I was done I ripped it up around the edges to get rid of some of my mess. Before I did that it looked awful! But it's kind of impossible to frost things neatly with Quinn around. One day I'll do it when I'm alone and it might actually look good.

Impressed to the limit... which part of the body is the red velvet? I want a slice from that :-)

Karen, LOL, yep, I've done that too. an exacto knife works real well for 'cutting' it. then you always run into that small spot where it just tears UNDER the cake, causing the icing to mess up... I just cant whoop that demon.. One day I will fiqure it out.. LOL But i hate piped borders on EVEERY THING.

But I do think it looks great!! my kids LOVED it!!

bizzeedee wrote:Impressed to the limit... which part of the body is the red velvet? I want a slice from that :-)

The head and part of the tail, LOL! The center of the body is vanilla, the head is red velvet, and the tail is mostly chocolate but has a section of red velvet left over from the head. I couldn't throw it away, now could I?

Chelle, I bet your kids love crocs and gators, don't they?

Looks great!


Waax paper under the edges of the cake takes care of icing spots

....Then we mixed up a ton of very dark grey buttercream and crumb-coated with that....

What is buttercream and crumb-coated

buttercream is a type of icing. usually made with crisco, powdered sugar, vanilla and butter flavor.
some folks use half real butter and half crisco, and some use all butter.
\

crumb coating is the very light coat that you put on the cake before you decorate and actually ice with the thicker layer.

you do it to hold everything together, make the finished product smoother and have less issues with the cake crumbiling and breaking when you ice.


Karen, YES- they LOVE them. They are always trying to sneak off and catch one. Luckily the creek behind us doesnt have one. because they'd have already got one. LOL

they did get to touch one at the JAKES event last month. it was a baby. but they loved it. there was too many kids there for them to get to do more than walk by and touch its tail.

He definitely looks sinister, great job Karen! A trick on not getting spots on the cake boards. What I used to do is cut long strips of wax paper about 3-6 in wide (depending on the amount of frosting/ decorating stuff that I would be slapping on the sides of the cake. Before frosting, I would tuck the wax strips under the edges of the cake, when the cake is frosted and decorated then I just slip the wax paper strips out leaving a clean edge and clean cake board...

Trax, buttercream is just a type of basic frosting. I like it because even though it's sweet, it tastes less sweet than most other frostings.

And like Chelle said, the crumbcoat is what you put on a cake if you decide to cut it before you frost it. I cut it to shape it like a crocodile, but the cut parts crumble up when you start to spread the frosting. So you put on a little frosting and let it set up hard, then you frost it again and it doesn't crumble. You don't have to do that if you're just stacking the cakes and not trying to cut them into a particular shape.

That cake looks really great!

Here is a recipe I found for Buttercream - is this near what you folks are using?

1/2 cup Shortening
1/2 cup Butter
1 tsp Vanilla
4 cups Icing Sugar (Powdered Sugar)
2 tbls Milk