Birthday Cake Roundup: Superman & Princess Barbie Cakes

Today, Fishmama is hosting her annual Birthday Cake Roundup.

In a typical year there is no way I'd be anywhere near this Roundup -- other than gawking at the amazing cakes people create and share. The typical birthday celebration at my house involves chocolate cupcakes, whatever color icing my kids want that year and some kind of small toy stuck on the top of the cupcakes as decoration: store-bought princesses for the girl, store-bought Superman logos for the boy. That's about as creative as I have gotten. After all, with one Halloween birthday and one Christmas birthday, there's a whole-whole-lot to do around here for birthdays.

Because of those weird holiday birthdays (especially the Christmas one), we celebrate Half-Birthdays around here.

We have a standard Half-Birthday Cake.

But this year brought a few surprises. While cleaning out my parent's house, we came across some of my mother's old cake decorating supplies. In particular a Superhero pan and a doll cake pan.

Ah. I thought. My kids would like those.

Maybe. Just maybe I can pull this off.

So I took the pans home and a few months later, tackled the first one:

Superman.

With a few tips and an icing recipe from my real life friend, Amy, along with the plastic face and "S" that came with the pan, Superman manged to look pretty much like himself.

With that success under my belt, and certainly not to be outdone by her older brother, my daughter requested "a chocolate doll cake with pink icing."

Princess Barbie

Barbie, however, was a bit more difficult than Superman. She involved engineering. I had to do a little research to figure out how to make her work. She is the major reason I was still awake at 2:30 Christmas morning.

Here are a few things I learned in making the Barbie Princess Doll cake.

1. Before baking, measure Barbie to see if the cake will be tall enough to come to her waist. If not, you can bake an extra round layer to place at the bottom of the cake.
2. Use a Barbie or similar doll. She looks much better than the typical "half-doll" that you can buy at Michael's.
3. When you cut the hole to fit Barbie into the cake, use a long-handled teaspoon to remove the cake from the hole (that was much easier quicker than the bagel tongs I'd been trying for 20 minutes!).
4. Wrap Barbie in saran wrap all the way to her bust so that she's easier to clean up.
5. Even 8-year old boys can be impressed by doll cakes.

What's been inspiring your birthday cakes this year?

Looking for more creative birthday cake inspiration? Be sure to visit Life as Mom.