It's Party Time!

Sneak peek of me & the Birthday boy & his "smash cake"......

Let me start at the beginning.......of my Saturday morning! See I'm going to share one cake baking secret with you (sorry, just one). I freeze my cakes beforehand. I know what you're thinking......Icicles, freezerburn, rock-hard cakes. Nope, wrong.wrong.and wrong! Freezing the cakes for a couple of days actually makes the cakes soooo moist & yummy!! You have to wrap them up real good when they go in the freezer. I double wrap in saran wrap & then put a nice tight layer of press & seal on top --we don't want any air in there!

So Sat morning I pulled my cakes out of  the fridge to let them start defrosting!

Lacey ordered a 12" round cake (she wanted enough to feed 25 people) in a white cake with raspberry cream cheese filling & buttercream icing for the big cake. Camden's "smash cake" was a smaller 6" white cake with whipped cream filling & buttercream icing. My only instructions from her: The party theme is BRIGHT FUN colors so I had free reigns over the design!!
Started by whipping up the buttercream icing....

then fill the cakes....

Add the top layer & frost. It's easiest to frost the cake with a thin crumb coat, throw it in the fridge for 15-20 minutes & then add a thick coat of frosting. If you let it firm up in the fridge you won't get the cake crumbs in your frosting (freezing your cake beforehand & frosting while it's still dethawing also cuts back on the crumbs getting in your frosting)........oops I said I was only giving you ONE of my secrets didn't I? Okay that's all you get!! Cake has it's thin crumb coat & ready to go in the fridge!

As my cakes were firming up, I started on the "design" side to the cakes. I had this vision in my mind for bright colored polka dots & since sometimes I don't have the most steady hand, I had gone candy shopping at Target for the perfect round, bright colored candies. I bought 12 packs of Mentos & Saturday morning got them out to start decorating the cakes..........Just One.Small.Problem......

My mentos were the OPPOSITE of Camden's bright fun colored party. They were dull, pasty,boring colors! They looked so bright & lively on the packaging!! Check the clock...Yikes it's already 12;30 & the cakes were due at 2:30!! Plan B......I luckily had a teeny bit of fondant left from a previous project so I started mixing colors & created as many polka dots as I could possibly scrounge out of my leftover fondant!

I think by this point in the morning I was running around like a mad-woman to get all the polka dots on the cake, perfect the writing (which is my least favorite thing to do & I am such a perfectionist that I re-did it 3 times.....the 3rd time the cake was actually in the box to be delivered -I just couldn't part with it until I fixed that one letter...) so no pictures from this point in the morning until these cakes were done & ready to go!! Actually JJ was loading them up in my car as I was trying to make myself look decent enough to go into public to deliver them when I started screaming from the bathroom "WAIT!! I HAVE TO GET PICTURES OF THEM!!!" So here's some pics that I very quickly snapped!!.....By the way, I have to give JJ credit. He had the cakes loaded up in my car, with my car running, seat warmer on & my purse in the car so I could just hop in & go!! He's the best!
Side Note: Notice that I made an executive decision to leave the green polka dots off the cake. They looked camo-colored in real life. Just in case I have any really detail-oriented followers who were wondering where the green polka dots were hiding!

And the smash cake

And here's Camden, his big moment where he can rip into the cake & eat as much sugar as he wants.....He's not really digging this whole "smash cake" concept....

Lucky for him....he's got plenty of cousins who were eyeing that cake & moved in to help him out! I love this picture. Caydence even took one for the team & got in Camden's high chair so she could really get into that cake!! Too Cute!!!

 Hope this step-by-step documentary of my Saturday morning wasn't too boring! I'm teaching jazzercise bright & early tomorrow morning so I better go catch some Zzzz's. Tomorrow morning will come fast!! Oh and in case  you were wondering, yes I will be sporting freshy mint breath for the next oh, 3 years. I have 12 packs of mentos to work my way through.