Happy 7th Birthday!

Recently it was my oldest son's 7th birthday and on the day we celebrated with a Freddo Frog ice cream cake, yum! His birthday party cake was however a bit more of a challenge than a straight-out-of-the-box-frozen-cake variety. This year he had a party at our local Timezone with his friends and his cake request was for a Star Wars Lightsaber! I have always wanted to try and make a cake using fondant icing and I thought I would finally give it a shot!

I was not quite sure how I would manage to make a cake in the shape of a lightsaber, my first ideas were to make either a square or rectangular shaped cake and cut it down to a shape resembling a lightsaber, though I was a bit apprehensive about getting it right! I decided that I really didn't have the time to fluff about trying to back and cut cakes to fit, so I thought I'd firstly give it a go with a premade jam roll cake from the supermarket.

To make the shape of the blue laser sword part of the lightsaber, I joined three mini jam rolls together in a long line using white chocolate ganache and then cut down one end so that it was curved rather than flat. I used the white chocolate ganache to cover the mini jam rolls and let it set in the fridge over night. I coloured some white fondant icing with blue colouring, rolled it out and then covered the sword section with it. There were a few cracks in the fondant when I did this but overall I was happy with it.

For the lightsaber handle I used a large jam roll and cut out a section where it would fit over the end of the blue lightsaber section. To cover the handle, I mixed in a small amount of black fondant with some white fondant to make a light grey shade, however it ended up being a bit of a purple colour instead. Just for my own curiosity to compare the difference in using chocolate ganache and butter cream under fondant, I covered the jam roll for the handle with butter cream icing and let it set in the fridge. I then covered this with the 'grey' fondant icing and joined the handle section to the rest of the lightsaber. I then rolled out some black fondant and cut to shape to stick on top of the handle, scoring it with the back of a fork to make the lines. I also cut out a circle of black fondant icing to put on the end of the handle. I finished off the cake with a large fruit tingle for the button on the handle and some blue glittery ready made gel icing around the laser section of the sword to give it a 'glowing effect.

I only have one cake board at home, and given that it is square, it was looking a bit bare with only the lightsaber sitting in the middle of it, so I piped on the happy birthday message in a 'Star Wars' font! I also made some candle holders out of left over black fondant. Overall result is not perfect, but for my first attempt at a fondant cake I was super impressed with how it turned out, as were the kids! I am pretty proud of my effort!


Inspiration for the lightsaber cake came from a google image search where I found these cakes here, here and here! Funnily enough, one of the lightsaber cakes I found was obviously made for a boy with the same name as our own!

6th Birthday Party!

Our eldest son is turning 6yo during the week and today was his grand birthday party at a local Gymnastics Centre. He had a joint birthday party with one of his school friends who is also turning 6yo during the week, so there was a birthday girl and a birthday boy in the spotlight! The party was for 2hrs, the first hour was of fun on all of the different gym equipment, then a half hour break for food, then the last half hour on the BIG trampoline! We had to cater ourselves but as it was in the late afternoon we kept it very simple with fairy bread, chips, pre ordered pizza delivery for dinner, frog in a pond and birthday cake! All the kids had an awesome time and it's definitely a place I could recommend for a party!

Both birthday children were having their own special cake for the party. Our son had initially asked if I could make him a birthday cake of a rectangle with his toy dinosaurs on top, which then became a more elaborate request to include a volcano! I was very happy with the end result and most importantly our son loved it.




To make his birthday cake, I made two vanilla cakes, one in a square cake tin, which I used as the base of the cake. The second cake I baked in a Pyrex mixing bowl so I could get some height and slope for the volcano. I cut the second cake into the shape for the volcano and then placed that on top of the square cake toward the back, scooping out a little off the top of the volcano. Chocolate icing with rice bubbles mixed through gave the texture for the volcanic mountain. The lava was created from red & orange sparkling cake decorating gel purchased from Spotlight. I iced the remainder of the cake, as well as most of the exposed cake board with green icing for grass. I left a small area for the lake, which was made of blue icing surround be chocolate rocks that I purchased from the Nut Shack. I placed 3 Schleich dinosaurs on the cake, and sprinkled some more chocolate rocks on the cake at the base of the volcano. I randomly placed tress and small plastic dinosaurs on the green icing on the cake board, as well as more chocolate rocks and some crushed up Cadbury Flake. The writing was done using the same sparkling red gel that I used for the lava. There was just enough room for 6 candles at the front right of the cake, in front of the Triceratops, and I also stuck some sparklers into the centre of the volcano for further effect!