Birthday Cakes and Cake Pops

Happy Birthday my sweet Lucy.

 The youngest of 3, she has been a pleasure - most of the time. She puts up with her big brother and sister and gets dragged around everywhere. She makes me laugh every day and I love to see how her mind works. She is her own person. And yes, she has to wear a skirt every day. Good thing Gma and I sew! She has some style.

Yes, she has had 2 cakes so far. One on her actual birthday (Mickey Mouse) and one while celebrating with Gma and Gpa Frank (Zooter - from Jungle Junction). 

As usual, both cakes were last minute requests and I had to look to the internet for ideas and do the best I could. Here is a little tutorial on making the Mickey Mouse cake and how I handle all the 'extras'. 

1. I started with a standard 9x13 cake. I used 2 different sized bowls to cut the circles. Cake left overs when into the larger bowl. The circles were transferred to a sheet cake pan lined with foil. I don't know where my cake board is - probably in the attic. I decided to make due with the pan.

                                                   

2. Then, on to the crumb layer. Spread a thin layer of thin frosting over the cake. This doesn't need to be pretty, just needs to contain all the crumbs. Place in the fridge for a bit to let the frosting set.

3. On to the main frosting. I am so glad we can get easily gel food coloring now! Makes getting colors other than pastels much easier. 

Now - what to do with all that extra cake and frosting??? Mush them all together and make cake balls!

Add a little frosting at a time and mix really well. 

Add frosting until you get what looks like a stiff cookie dough.

Then just roll into balls and chill. Now, if you want to be really fancy, you can dip these in chocolate. By this time, I am too tired to worry about anything other than getting these to be in a somewhat round shape. They get gobbled up so fast, no one has cared about how they look. Phew - no need to do more work. ;)

If you still have left over frosting, you can just spread some on graham crackers. Yes it is YUMMY! However, I just threw mine out. Really, there are soooo many sweets in our house right now, I don't need to be temped with MORE.