Through the years in Birthday Cakes

Usually I like to write my blogs in the evening, and schedule them to post the next morning. Last night that just didn’t work.

After a 15-hour work day followed by a 13-hour work day, each with at least 2 hours of study and writing for the Master’s Program I started this month, the brain just wasn’t up to putting any more words together. It isn’t exactly cooperating yet today, which is why I am choosing a photo-heavy subject today.

I like to cook and bake.  And it just seems right to have a homemade cake for the kids’ birthdays, if I can make it. Somewhere along the line I started doing themes, and then the kids started asking for different ideas that I tried to do, some better than others.

So today I went through my photos of birthdays and cakes, to do a retrospective. I know some are missing, but here’s by quick put-together:

The earliest picture I can find is this cake from Carly’s 10th birthday. Icing was a little runny, and the tower cones didn’t stand up a straight as they could. This idea came out of a Betty Crocker cookbook for kids that my grandmother got for us when I was a kid.

The next cake picture I could find  is just an ordinary cake, from the same year, Nathan’s 8th birthday.

This cake is the one that I think got things really started. For Nathan’s ninth birthday I picked up on his Renaissance swashbuckling interest to make this crusader’s type shield and daggers cake. I remember the paper stencil we cut and carefully laid on the cake to shake out that colored sugar to make the cross. It is still one of my  favorites.

For Carly’s next birthday we got creative with cupcakes. I don’t remember clearly, but it seems that one of the cousins had cupcakes at their birthday, and we got the idea to use them to make a picture as well. If you can’t guess — it is Sponge Bob Square Pants.

For Nathan’s 10th birthday I was into the almond bark creations with a mold kit we had.  So I melted and colored a lot of the seashell molds and did this ocean-themed cake.

For Carly’s 13th birthday she wanted a pizza — pizza cake that is.  Various sweets gave the impression of cheese and toppings with the cake for crust and the red icing for pizza sauce.

By Nathan’s 11th birthday he had started the Pokemon fixation that he still had, so we made this simple cake with accompanying cupcakes — pokéballs.

My pictures skip Carly’s 14th and go to Nathan’s 12th. The theme Gobbler King, an antagonist in Wizard101.

This cake,  for Carly’s 15th birthday, is definitely one of my favorites — even wrote a whole blog about it. Marlon, the character here, is  from an independent movie being produced that still hasn’t come out yet, though we got a short prequel video the other week (Carly made a contribution to be a benefactor and will have her name in the credits as such ).

This one for Nathan’s 13th birthday takes a little explaining. His name is Grun. He is one of Nathan’s original characters that he likes to draw. I’m told his look has developed a little bit since we did this cake.

For Carly’s 16th birthday she found this dragon cake on a website that she wanted me to do, so I followed the pattern and did it. Came out pretty sharp.

And finally (for now) is Nathan’s 14th birthday cake. He got Animal Crossing: New Leaf for his Nintendo 3DS, and wanted a cake modeled off the game.  So we did something off the leaf logo and banner from the game. Turned out really well.

And that is it for cakes — until today.  Carly’s 17th birthday party is today, and this year’s cake — will not be revealed until after the party.

And even with all the pictures that was quite exhausting to write, still recuperating my word power.