My grandson wanted Clifford the Big Red Dog Cake for his 3rd birthday. He loved the way Clifford’s tail stuck out the back window of his dog house in the picture book so I knew I wanted to incorporate that into the cake design.
I baked one sheet cake and two house cakes using a house shape pan. Next time I would use a base under the house and dowels to support the weight, even though I had instructions that said it wasn’t necessary. It was very hot the day of the party and I struggled with the frosting melting as I was decorating. Even with these challenges the cake was a success and my grandson was thrilled. I started with black and white pictures of the characters that I found online covered with wax paper.
The first step was to outline the picture with black royal icing and let it dry completely. Using a small tip I filled in each of the spaces with the appropriate color. It took about a week for the designs to completely dry and some needed to be touched up. I kept my royal icing in the decorating bags with a toothpick in the tip and stored in a Ziploc bag with all the air removed. I found it easier to leave the wax paper on the back of the design and carefully cut away the extra wax paper with a razor blade.
I had some extra royal icing that I used around the base of the designs to help them stand-up. At the last minute Curious George became his new favorite character so I added the monkey flying in with a bundle of plastic balloons. The sheet cake was decorated with M&M, candy dog bones, candy pumpkins and rainbow colored sprinkles. I covered the edge of the cake board with curly ribbons.
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