Since my son is apparently “too big” for theme parties, he just wanted to incorporate his favorite colors, orange and blue, and “cool stuff like skulls and flames” into his 10th birthday party cake and decorations. So I printed up the invitations, which included an orange flaming skull and blue flames. For the cake, I baked two 13X9 cakes (one white, one chocolate) and stacked them with chocolate frosting in between. I then colored some frosting blue and spread it over the entire cake.
To create “flames,” I piped red, orange, and yellow frosting into a design I free handed (first marking the general outline with a toothpick) on the top of the cake. Using another toothpick, I swirled and pulled the frosting around to make it look like flames. I left room at the top of the cake to pipe my son’s name in orange frosting, as well as enough space to place the candles he picked out at the store. I also put some of the orange and red frosting into a pastry tube with a star tip and piped around the perimeter of the cake. I kind of like how those ended up looking like little flames, too.
To create the skull, I used a box of ready-to-use rolled white fondant that my MIL gave me after cleaning out her cupboard a couple years ago. It was hard as a rock, but became pliable after a couple turns in the microwave. After looking at some pictures of skulls on the internet, I sculpted the fondant into a 3D skull form (well, as close to looking like a skull as I could get it). Using a pastry brush, I dusted the eye sockets, nose, and teeth with cocoa powder, just to give it some definition.
With four children, I’ve made a lot of birthday cakes over the past 12 years…many successes and a few duds, too. This one ended up being one of the easier ones and, despite my extremely amateur sculpting and frosting skills, I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. Thankfully, my kids are very forgiving and appreciative of my efforts, so my birthday boy loved it!
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