A camping beach-side birthday cake

Sometimes different events collide and help create something better.  The way Angelina’s birthday party and cake together was a bit like that.

We’d postponed Angelina’s party a couple of weeks as we had such a hectic April.

She asked for a sleepover party, I put a twist on it and suggested a camping sleepover party.  She was ecstatic, even though this meant she could only invite 4 friends.

As the birthday party details were cementing I had tough standards to beat after my easy, pink princess castle cake

I vacillated about the theme and the implementation for a couple of weeks… and finally the idea was born.

It was to be a beach-side camping cake!

The reason is simple:

Angelina loves these two things- camping and the beach

So on Saturday morning I set about making the cake.

I made two mixes: a Madeira cake mix from Wright’s (I love their mixes!) and a sponge cake. (full recipe and detailed instructions to follow)

The Madeira cake mix was split between two moulds  for baking so I’d have the height needed for a tent.

The sponge cake was just going to be the landscape, so I baked it in a my biggest baking tray.

The landscape

My frosting was cream cheese mixed with castor sugar (I prefer it over buttercream, as it’s lighter and gives the cakes a lovely squishy moist coating. It also has more flavour.).

For the grass I added green colouring to the frosting

For the beach I used white frosting

For the sea I added blue food colouring

I also added some Belgian chocolate seashells under the sand and the sea for some interest

For the sand I crushed digestive biscuits and sprinkled that over the white frosting mix

The river is a mix of blue and green

The dolphin (or Orca… whichever you think it is) is made of coloured marzipan, as is the alligator. It’s a bot like playing with playdough to make your shapes, just a bit more sticky and delicious.

The tent

The Madeira cake, carved to a triangular tent shape (not that even I’ve stayed in one of those triangular tents for donkey’s years) was covered by melted Yolli.

This stuff was new to me too: it’s like working with chocolate- you melt it over steam and smear it on like melted chocolate.

It solidifies.

It’s great to work with and I liked the fact it’s coloured.  The flavour is like white chocolate.

I then drapped coloured marzipan over the tent to give a bit more canvas look.  The front propped up but 3 cocktail sticks.

The people poking their heads out of the tent were made from marzipan too.  (I prefer marzipan over fondant, because it’s much nicer to eat it.)

The parasol

I made the parasol with melted Yolli and some cocktail sticks.

So Happy 8th Birthday Angelina!

Do you know what?

Some cakes just don’t live up to their looks in taste. Well, I can happily say this one was absolutely delicious!  It tasted so much better than it looked! 😀

The kids devoured it, especially enjoying the marzipan figures and the hidden chocolate seashealls.

What’s the most creative cake you’ve made?