Garrett Is 5 . . and His Birthday Is Done . . . Finally!!

We seem to have  accidentally established a not so good tradition in our family.  Birthdays take for ever!!  It isn't over until you get cake, or your dessert of choice.  Poor Garrett had to wait a whole month for his birthday party.  No is pointing fingers, since there are so many guilty parties in the delay . . . . which a pretty convenient.

So anyhoo, here is the low down on the birthday of our big 5 year old boy!!

The cake started with talking about fractions with Gabriel.  This is how his mother and my other kids were also introduced to fractions. . .  cooking.  The idea got mixed reviews from the kids, but Gabriel thought it was OK since he got to help me make the cake . . after which, I taught him the "fine art of scraping the bowl". That of course is a VERY important part of baking.



Next night, Garrett got to help me frost the TX Sheet Cake.  He made the same mistake that I tend to do, and went over the same spot too many times.  Poor little guy looked up at me with such great big eyes full of panic.  he was so sure that he had ruined his own cake.  It was OK when I told him that we could put the requested island full of dinosaurs over it.  The light blue frosting was poured over a coat of white frosting that was blocking out some of the brown from chocolate showing through.  Garrett loved the spray that gave the "water" a little more dimension.  Garrett was shown the fine art of scraping the pan after making the candy frosting for the cake . .  also a VERY important part of baking.

The island needed to have some height so that there could be the requested water fall on it, so I made the second cake in various pans and bowls.  It was supposed to be light chocolate so that would look better under the "sand".



We made a second batch of the candy frosting, tinted it a bit to make it tan colored and poured it over the "island".  Garrett was getting pretty excited at this point as he could see his dream cake coming together.  It was his job to place all of the fishes in the water and dinosaurs on the island.  I did have him leave some space on that one area for a surprise shark that Gabriel had helped me find.  It was BIG!! and had great teeth.

Garrett is talking about volcanoes a lot these days, so along with the shark, and water fall, I added some hot lava . . .  he seemed excited when he first saw it over at the park, just before his party and then all of a sudden, got upset and wanted it "off right now"!  It was just too late and then the guests started to arrive . .  what to do, what to do.

He finally accepted and went to play with the rest of the kids.  Whew!!  You really can't tell, but there is a little Tiki hut on the backside of the volcano.  I had hoped to put the five little candles at the top like fire coming out of the volcano, but he wanted to have the "five" candle up there.  Oh well, it was his cake.

Years ago, I learned to decorate cakes and thought it would be so wonderful to do special cakes for my kids as they grew up.  My hot old hands (even when I was young) would melt the icing in those bags so quickly, so I had to resorts to other methods.  Wish I had figured out how to use this pouring frosting a long time ago.

Now I can just have the kids guide me and give them what they want.  It is often no where near as grandiose as we imagine.  I have adopted the motto, " don't impress the adults, thrill the kids,"  I more than one question about how I made this cake.  Smart moms, smarter than I was!!