cube

Cake time again!

A friend offhandedly remarked that if I felt so inclined, I could make a cake for her 10 year old. I seriously replied 'sure! what kind?'

And so began the search for ideas on a Minecraft cake.

The cake base was pretty easy to settle on--I found a nifty idea for a grass block on Pinterest and set to work on a white cake*. These went in the freezer to make frosting the whole thing easier later.

Then I started researching with what to adorn the top of the block and decided I really wanted to go all Cake Boss on this and made a figurine. I whipped up a sheet pan of Rice Krispie treats and then cut them up into the various pieces I'd need.

Next came the fondant, of which I am very inexperienced. I decided not to get uptight about it, which made that process much easier, and set to work coloring and rolling out and covering the various pieces.

I got a set of food coloring markers to be able to add the blocky colors to the figure.

Then assembly and moving on to frosting the cake portion!

Because he requested chocolate frosting, I knew I wanted to fill with that, so I made a full batch of chocolate buttercream. The filling I left straight up, but the outside frosting got a few crushed Oreos** added for extra 'dirt' feel. The top, of course, had to be vanilla so I could color it green to simulate grass. I used the grass tip (#233) and went to town.

I kept everything separate until we got there, then I quickly toothpicked everything, squished the guy onto the grass and took it in the house. All the kids were super excited and loved having superior knowledge to the adults.

The whole thing was quite delicious--the cake was like a modified angel food, since there were so many egg whites, but held up to the buttercream nicely. The addition of Oreos gave a nice little extra something to the chocolate buttercream (which, by the way, is rather delicious, and I may have to find more reasons to use it).

If you've ever watched Cake Boss, you'll know disasters happen. Rather than my poor planning (obviously toothpicks were not strong enough), I like to think that Steve (what the boys named the guy) got a little overwhelmed and no one was watching his wine intake... 

*The birthday boy requested white cake with chocolate frosting, when his mother enquired.
**I used one row of a pack of Oreos. Ground up in the food processor.