Coolest Crawfish Boil/Mardi Gras Birthday Cake

This Homemade Crawfish Boil/Mardi Gras Birthday Cake is a cake I made my boyfriend, Gantt, for his 27th birthday. I chose the Crawfish Boil/Mardi Gras theme because Crawfish is one of his favorite foods and we love to go to Mardi Gras each year.

The cake is what I call a Neopolitan cake. I asked Gantt what kind of cake he wanted and he said “one layer chocolate, one vanilla, and one strawberry,” so that’s what he got! Each cake mix was made from scratch with some of my personal recipes. Each layer is a 9 inch round. A homemade vanilla butter cream was used in between each layer and the outside of the cake.

To decorate, I first rolled out white fondant to make a “string” and laid it around the edge of the top to make a pool like effect. I then rolled the rest of the fondant to cover. The string makes a raised effect that gives the boiling pot a rim. Next, I mixed a silver pearl dust with a little lemon juice to cover the bottom of the pot. I then put blue sparkle gel on the top of the pot to make a water effect.

I made the handles of the pot with wooden spools bought from Hobby Lobby. I spray painted them silver to match the color of the pot. I hot glued wooden dowel rods to the end of the spools that were long enough to stick in the cake and not allow the spools to fall or tilt.

I decorated the cake with plastic Mardi Gras crawfish I bought off eBay. I added one crab (because Gantt isn’t a big fan of crab) I bought from a local Dollar store. The beads were from the last Mardi Gras we went to (I washed them very well!). The corn is a Styrofoam stalk I cut in half and painted the end to match the rest of the corn. The lemons were also plastic bought from Hobby Lobby.

The base of the cake of course had to be newspaper. I took local newspaper clippings of some of Gantt’s favorite things (his sports teams, etc.) and taped it to a long cake board. I then laid clear vinyl covering on top (bought at Hobby Lobby, where else?). It made for the perfect touch! All together, here is Gantt’s Crawfish Boil/Mardi Gras birthday cake!