Clay's Ocean Birthday Cake & Cookies

Last Tuesday was my son's 10th birthday.  Ever since we went to California a few weeks ago (Sea World, the beaches, etc.), he is crazy about ocean themed things.  He especially likes dolphins now, since we had a special visit with a mama dolphin and her baby at Sea World.  He asked for a swimming sleepover at a hotel with an ocean themed chocolate cake.  He wanted sea creatures made out of glazed sugar cookies placed around it, as well as dolphins up on the top.  At this point, I kind of feel like I could glaze sugar cookies in my sleep :).  The sea shells are leftover white chocolates from the luao cake earlier this week.  The dolphins, waves, and presents were made out of marshmallow fondant.  The white foam and caps of the waves were royal icing.  On his actual birthday, I made these orca and angelfish cookies for his class at school.  Happy Birthday, Clay!! 

Orca birthday cake

Yesterday I made this little stage cake for my daughter's friend who is crazy about Shamu and all things Sea World.  Her dream cake, she said, would have a mother and baby orca swimming together.  I made the whales out of sugar cookies (baked with cookie sticks in them) and then made the wave details out of fondant (base of cake) and the shells out of candy melts.

Barbie Mermaidia Stage Cake

Today I made a Barbie themed cake inspired by the Fairytopia/Mermaida movie for my friend's daughter who was turning 5. I always enjoy making cakes for kids, but most especially when the kids know exactly what they want and tell me all kinds of details to include. For this little girl, she really wanted to see blue frosting for ocean with yellow cake inside to remind her of sand, a turtle & dolphin character from the movie, the Bibble character, a sparkly orange or red starfish, and seashells made out of candy. At first, she asked for "saltwater flavored buttercream," but her mom and I agreed that maybe it might be less offensive to the palette if we instead sprinkled the frosting with chunky sugar crystals. I found a chocolate mold and made the shells and starfish out of white chocolate (dusted the starfish in colored sanding sugar to make them sparkle), and then made a key lime filling between layers that was bright green to look like seaweed. The pebbles are edible chocolate rocks I found at Walmart. I was really disappointed with how the Bibble character came out (*had such high hopes for him!), but after 2 hours of re-doing him and fussing over him, I gave up and decided to just accept him the way he was. Hopefully the birthday girl liked this one! It was my first time doing a stage cake. If you are curious about this technique, they are fun to do and very easy. You just bake 2 rounds of equal size (these were 10"), then cut one of them exactly in half and lay it on top of its other half. You can use the elevated area to set the scene/background for all kinds of character cakes.