the cake

So... My friend Lindsey inspired me years ago when I saw a couple cakes she made for some baby showers and her kids birthdays. It was simple but 'refined' if you will and I thought... I'm gonna try to do that one day. Last year I made my first (ambitious) attempt: a three tier, pink and white checkered cake with homemade light green tinted frosting (pink accent frosting) and girl baby toys decorating the top. I was told by a few people that it was really neat AND really really yummy. Since I didn't get any negative comments, I felt excited to try it again one day. The day has come!

My son's second birthday party was a 50's Sock Hop theme. I researched online for ideas and chose to do a Drive-in Cake. I only found one example so I used that information and took off from there....

I made the cake white but did later add some rainbow sprinkles before I baked it. I mostly used the frosting above but tinted one can of it brown by adding 3 heaping spoonfuls of cocoa so it would look like a 'dirt road' and used the milk chocolate for 'mulch' color later for around the trees.

Once I baked the cake, in a 13x9 cake pan, it had the traditional 'hump' in the middle. I used my bread knife to cut it down till it was flat. I tried to cut as big of pieces as possible cause I set them aside to support layers and the 'ramp' to the drive in later. After cutting the hump I flipped the cooled cake upside down on foil covered foam board that I made sure fit in the fridge shelf (make sure you loosen the cake from pan on sides and bottom before to avoid breakage). I'm sorry I don't have a picture of this part cause it is very interesting. Once I layered the extra cake pieces for the ramp and also raised the tree areas around the sign and screen with the other cake, I spread a thin layer of white frosting over the entire sides and top to sort of glue it together then refrigerated it for a couple hours before the real frosting time.

In the mean time. I prepared the cakes elements: Trees, dollar store cheap cars, Homemade from my card shop program Drive-in sign, Movie screen with image of the movie from online and the candles. I used bamboo skewers for the stakes. Not pictured is the large sugar crystals I used for 'gravel' and the Nestle Crunch "pebbles" I used for the "rock wall".

Here is a close up of frosting, 'gravel' and 'rock wall' landscaping. After the white frosting set, I frosted the sides and most of the top with the 'dirt' colored frosting, while it was still 'wet', I did the rock wall so they would bond. I also made sort of 'ramps' for the cars for watching the movie with the 'dirt'. I purposely went into a wave pattern in places with the rock to give more interest. Next I did the 'mulch' frosting, then the 'gravel' was spread, cars were placed and trees. Last I added the lettering for Happy Birthday etc.

Evan seeing the cake for the first time. "CARS!!!" and he was fascinated by the candles which he doesn't remember seeing before.

It was so much fun to be creative and design my own cake for such a fun party. We had a really great time. :)