We’re making practice cakes for Michael’s birthday. He wants a Cowboy Cake, I thought no big deal, find a cowboy toy, and stick it on top.
The Cowboy Drama~
It’s amazing to me how hard it is to find a cowboy toy for a reasonable price, in Texas. We went to three stores looking for one.
First we went to Big Lots. They have a bunch of fun little pirates and knights, so why not some cowboys? The only Cowboy they had was 4 inches tall and in a big old old west set. Something like $20. Strike One.
Then Target. Looked over the whole toy section 3 or 4 times. I was really hoping for a good Indian in the Cupboard style Cowboy, to no avail. They had a whole slew of the little soldier toys, the ones my second cousin and neighbor Scott, would play in the dirt with when we were kids… His G.I.Joe’s would also defeat Ken and win over Barbie, we had a lot of fun, but I digress again- You’d think Target would have Cowboys and Indians, maybe they’re too politically correct nowadays, so they just had Roman looking soldiers and modern day (or more mid 20th century ones) ones. There were plenty of small horses, with the other toy animals, and then their was the Breyer Horses, but no cowboys there… There was a nice little Barbie CowGIRL (Kip maybe? What’s the little sister’s name?). They had an awesome looking cowboy in their Ology section. Only he was $16 and at least 5 inches tall and very wide. He’d dwarf even a large cake… But I put it in my memory and decided I’d try one more store. Strike Two.
Lastly, Toys R Us, by this point I was asking Michael every other aisle or so, “Are you sure you want a Cowboy cake? This would make a great this or that [dragon, pirate, zoo, safari, dinosaur, etc…] cake?” “Nope, I want a Cowboy Cake!” -Note to self, make sure you can do it before you daydream and agree on a project again, Kaylene- I finally found a tinker toys set with a cowboy inside. $16 again, but it came with a whole new set of fun toys that’ll double as a birthday gift (yup, my 6 year old will know one of his presents), I think it looks alright…
The Cake Drama~
We made a practice cake a week ago, it was a white cake with cherry chips, we covered it with vanilla icing, and then played around a bit with blue frosting and pretzels to make a fence, I thought I had green but just blue frosting, hahaha! We used a standard 9×13 casserole, it wasn’t too pretty… Michael and I took turns with the icing.
Then Thursday night as I was drifting off to sleep I really got to thinking, what If I did a round two layer cake, or maybe an oval cake… Then did a half a cake mix in some other cake pan and made a hill or mountain on the top? That might be cool.
I shouldn’t have taken Michael on that part of my shopping. I ended up with 2- 9 inch cake pans, and 3- 4 inch pans. We made a second trial cake lastnight. It looks a bit like a top hat. I think I won’t bother with leveling the final one as much to make it look more earthy.
The top small cake is lemon poppy seed, I used a half size muffin mix I had, thinking that would be perfect, it was OK, but it rose too much in the center so I had to cut off a lot to level it… The bottom cake is Chocolate Fudge.
I frosted it all with Caramel frosting. We ran out, so this morning I mixed up half a tub of buttercream with a ton of cocoa powder and some food coloring, and somehow it ended up matching well enough.
I tinted the other half of the buttercream for the grass, I added too much corn syrup, it was too runny. I put on pretzels for the fences, and chocolate mix skittles for the stones (still have a bunch of those left over, from that splurge) and our Tinker Toys cowboy and horse.
What do you think? Any tips to make this beginner cake look better for the next try??? I’m pretty sure I’ll be sick of cake by the time we finish up the next cakes. I’m making one for his class, a pie for Kevin (they share a b-day) and maybe a cake at home for a little party here, if I get brave enough… That’s a LOT of sweets… Maybe we’ll have meatloaf cake for my birthday a few weeks later… 😉
that it great!!! I didn’t know skittle came in that color/flavor! What kind of frosting recipe did you use? I have one that is stiff that might be better for the grass. That’s really my only suggestion. I think it looks fabulous. The cowboy is the perfect size.
The grass frosting was just the buttercream, I added a little powdered sugar to firm it up, but then was afraid it’d be too stiff, so I added some corn syrup… Bad idea, LOL! I think I’ll make royal icing, or just use the green prebagged stuff I got, but that’s sure a lot of dye… and you saw how that worked on the white cake, hahaha…
You are such a creative mommy, K! My mom use to make amazing cakes like yours when we were kids. I made cakes for each of my kids thru elementary(though not as good as yours), then switched to store bought when they were teens.
Aunt Suzanne
That’s the thing, pretty much all I’ve done is store bought cakes, LOL! For my 18th birthday I made a neopolitan cake, it was HUGE it was 3 9×13 cakes stacked with their proper frosting, and I got the ice cream too… Hahaha! I had a TON of guests to that party. That was the last “fancy” cake I ever made…
It’s cool to hear that Grandma did them, it’s fun what you tell me about our families heritage, Thanks!
I remember when I was about 6 my Mom make a princess cake, I wanted gradient layers like a wedding cake, so I remember her looking through my grandma’s pans to borrow some for my cake, but I don’t remember a thing else about it, other than I LOVED it. Hahaha!
do you want me to look for a cowboy piece? i know his birthday is in a few weeks, and i could send one, but i could take a look around here. I think you are really creative with those cakes. Maybe if you dont like how they look, you can go a google it, and see if there is a way that you can learn to make a cake. i dont know, just giving you ideas. let me know if you want me to look for a cowboy piece.
Nahh, this cowboy is cute. Thanks though! Io have been doing some reading on cakes, and I think I’m improving.
I think that came out super cute!! Amberlicious from BBC told me that adding merengue powder to homemade frosting makes it much easier to pipe. I haven’t made a cake yet since she told me that, so I’m anxious to try it. I think that making fun cakes is one of the best parts of kid birthdays. I figure that I only have three opportunities per year to do it, so I might as well go all out.
So cute! Love it!
super cute cake! Way to go on it. 😀
Wow, I’m impressed! I love making cakes. It really brings out your creative side, and it’s fun for the kids too.
what a cute cake. You are smart to practice. I didn’t practice for me bathtub cake and it almost didn’t happen because so many things went wrong.