What you do in your house is worth as much as if you did it up in heaven for our Lord God. We should accustom ourselves to think of our position and work as sacred and well-pleasing to God, not on account of the position and work, but on account of the word and faith from which the obedience and the work flow. ~ Martin Luther

Friday, April 10, 2009

Tractors and trails and puppy dog tails


Andrew asked for a tractor cake this year, after switching on and off with the notion of an owl cake for about two months. It seems, the cake is a VITAL part of the celebration and needs to be thought about often in order to ensure the PERFECT pick.

I toyed with the options. I could make a 3D shape one, but frosting the dumb thing seemed too----strenuous? I could buy a tractor shaped pan-but that would cost money. Next I thought~I'll decorate the cake with a frontal view of a tractor using icing and then put a cut out photo of Andrew as the driver. But then, I screwed my head on the right way and realized-there just ain't no way I could draw a realistic (or even cartoony) tractor with icing.

So once again. Lazy bones Mama takes the easy way out. I raided the toybox and found one of his toy tractors.

But, plopping a toy tractor on a cake just doesn't give it the proper birthday OOMPH! So I decided to try my hand at fondant.

(I know about fondant now, because one evening while visiting my inlaws, they had the TV on to a show about extreme cakes and oh.my.goodness. I have never seen such amazing craziness in all my life. I left there house wanting. yearning. PINING to try out fondant.)

As I suspected, fondant is super fun to play with. Like edible playdough. Only problem is~I don't much like the taste. It lacks pizazz. Nevertheless, the fun factor makes up for the flavor and without it, I couldn't have created NEARLY as nice a three-dimensional garden as I did! I mean, BEAN teepee?! Try to do THAT with icing!



The insides were carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. The soil was cookie crumbs. The grass was green coconut.

And the BOY played with the tractor like he had never seen it before and asked for seconds on vegetables.


We had meatloaf and mashed taters on the patio for dinner under a golden sunset and the children danced and danced while waiting for me to finish the sherbert punch cups I made specially for the celebration.



Papa had to work late so the cake cutting was well-anticipated. Now was about the time my head began to hurt, so that put a kabash on the photos of opening presents. That's ok~present opening doesn't last very long at our house anyway.

My personal favorite of Andrew's gifts was the one wrapped in a tissue and tied with a pink ribbon. It was a piece of coal.

From his sister.

Coal, scouted out and discovered in our basement among gravel fragments, is a real treasure round here. No need to spoil the fun with reality.

7 comments:

Tracy said...

What an adorable cake for an adorable boy!

Jerelene said...

Oh, I LOVE the cake!!! I would absolutely love to take cake decorating classes. You did a very good job on his cake..I bet he LOVED it!! And yes, the bean pole is awesome!

Peggy said...

Ah, he is so sweet! The cake is gorgeous!! Did you make the fondant from scratch? I tried a few recipe yrs ago but added extract to make it more flavorful. The boys liked it but I don't remember how it tasted! hum.. We now use marzipan instead of fondant. (it is soooo good! but we love that almondy taste...)

I'm glad to see you all had a delightful day!!

Grandma Bibby said...

The cake looks fabulous! You are very creative.

Abigail said...

Happy birthday, Andrew!

LOVE the cake! I was *this* close to using fondant for Annie's cake this year, but I didn't have enough powdered sugar to make enough to cover the whole ship, and I didn't know if the cooked fondant or uncooked recipe would yield a better result. Please share yours, 'cause those vegetables are marvelous! You did a fabulous job!

(p.s. I love the lighting of that last picture-- such a warm and cozy atmosphere for celebrating.)

Nanci said...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANDREW!!!!!!

You are certainly becoming quite the little man.

Your mom really makes great birthday cakes. I probably would have played with the tractor, too!

Love,

Miss Nanci

Chris said...

That cake is very cute! And Andrew looks adorable too.

Google marshmallow fondant. It is simple to make and tastes sooo much better than regular fondant.