As my kids have gotten older they’re less interested in large elaborate birthday parties. However, even if the event itself has gotten much simpler, that doesn’t mean we don’t love a good celebration, and a fancy cake to go with it!
Elliot’s birthday falls in the summer, which means there is usually a fun and family friendly movie available! Thankfully, we all enjoy the movies, so for the past few years we’ve spent his birthday at the theater! This year’s pick was the emoji movie, which made choosing a theme for the birthday cake a no brainer!
We were celebrating with a small group, seven of us, so I thought it might be fun to create individual cakes for each guest, rather than one much larger cake, which might go to waste. I asked Elliot to choose the emojis, with the condition that he would only choose round.
Here are the seven he chose:
😂 😊 😍 😎 🙄 🙃 😶
In keeping with the theme Elliot requested the cakes and frosting both be lemon flavor. I wanted to the cakes to be uniform in size and shape, so used mini spring form cake pans, and baked the cakes in two batches. Once the cakes had cooled completely a cake leveler was used to ensure they were all the same height. Spread a thin layer of frosting over each cake, this will also help adhere the fondant.
While the cakes were baking I prepared the fondant.
You can purchase fondant in every color of the rainbow, however, if you can also color the fondant yourself, which is what I did. Divide the fondant up based on how many colors you’ll be using.
A helpful hint: put parchment paper down on your work surface and wear clean new plastic gloves while kneading the fondant. Not only will this protect your hands and surfaces from the food coloring, but you’ll find fondant much easier to work with if you don’t touch it directly with warm hands.
Rather than use a traditional cake board I thought it would be fun to make the cake board part of the theme! Using a piece of recycled cardboard covered in foil and parchment paper I created a birthday “text box.” Use the leftover cardboard to create little boards for your mini cakes, which will make handling and decorating them a lot easier.
Creating the faces was actually much easier than it sounds. I used items I already had on hand in the kitchen, including cookie cutters and alphabet shapes. For example the tears of laughter were created using the letter J!
Happy 9th Birthday Elliot!
🍰 🎁🎉🎂
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joylovestravel
Such a great and creative cake – it looks amazing Hilary.
Hilary
Thank you! They were pretty tasty too!
littlediyprojects
They look delicious!
Hilary
They were fun and delicious!