The Simplistic Baker: Garden Cake

I tell everyone that I love weddings.  I actually say it like this: "I loooooooooove weddings!".  This is half true..., okay, one forth true.  What I really love is cake, and weddings are known to have some freaking awesome cake.  My first thoughts when I receive a wedding invite? "I'm invited to an event that someone labored over a cake for HOURS?!?" (Now picture me doing a mixture of these moves).  Weddings only happen so often, so I try to labor over my girl's birthday cakes to make them almost as awesome as a wedding cake.

I am not a talented baker, so I needed help in making cakes and cupcakes amazing.  I have many different cupcake books that focused on recipes, but I have one cupcake book to rule them all:

This book is amazing.  The blog is equally awesome! The techniques used in this book can make the beginner baker look like professional.  ...Or close to.  I use this book not just for cupcakes, but for my cakes as well.  I'm not a huge fan of fondant, and this book gives many alternatives to it!

For my oldest girl's second birthday, I made her a garden cake.  I got this idea straight from "Hello Cupcake".  I tweaked the idea just a little to fit my cake idea.  Here is my finished product:

I made the photo a bit bigger so you can see the cake better.  I appologize in advance for my crappy photo cropping! Crazy that I didn't take more pictures of the cake! To make a cake like this, here's what you need:

Fruit chews (star burst, laffy taffy)

Corn flakes

Chocolate covered sunflower seeds

Green string candy (Sour straws, rainbow twizzlers)

Chocolate crunchy cookies (Oreos, thin mints, chocolate graham crackers)

M & M's (green and red)

Stick Pretzels

Unsalted square crackers 

White wafer chocolate

Two 8x8 stacked square cakes

2 cans of chocolate frosting

1 can of white frosting

Food coloring

Parchment paper

Bake two 8x8 cakes.  Stack them on top of one another and frost completely with chocolate frosting. 

Crunch up your chocolate cookies really fine.  I used Oreos and just took out the cream, and then smashed the crap out of them!  Doing this is especially helpful if you've had a stressful day.  Sprinkle the mutilated cookies evenly on the top of the cake.   

Unwrap your fruit chews.  You will need a red and an orange fruit chew.  The red will be for the tomatoes, and the orange will be for the carrots.  Fruit chews can be easily manipulated in shape if they are a little warm.  Pop one of the fruit chews in the microwave for 5-10 seconds and then shape away!  Everything basically needs to be in balls except the carrots.

Color a large spoonful of white frosting green, and then heat the frosting up in the microwave for 10-12 seconds. You want the frosting to be soupy. Dip different sizes of corn flakes in the frosting and lay on the parchment paper to dry.  You will use these for the lettuce heads and the tops of the radishes. 

Carrots:

With kitchen shears or very clean scissors, cut the sour straws into thin strips at different lengths, the tallest being the length of your pinkie.  Poke holes in the orange shaped carrots using a toothpick.  Squirt a small dab of white frosting in the hole and stick the thin sour straw strips in the hole.  Repeat until you have enough carrots for your desired row.  Stick the carrots in a row into the tops of your cake.

Tomatoes:

Color the rest of your white frosting green.  Place all of the red fruit chews on the top of the cake in a row.  Put some of it in a small ziploc bag using the technique in Hello Cupcake (or use a piping bag) and pipe a little greenery on the tops of your tomatoes.  

Lettuce Heads:

At this point, your frosting covered corn flakes should be dry.  Get a green M & M and surround it with the frosting covered corn flakes.  Secure them to the M & M with dabs of green frosting.  Put the lettuce heads in a row on the cake.

Radishes: 

Following the directions on the bag, melt a 1/2 cup of the white chocolate wafers.  Get the desired amount of red M & Ms that you want for your radishes and dip the tip of the M & M in the wafer chocolate.  Let dry on parchment paper.  Once the chocolate is dry on the radish, secure one or two frosting covered corn flakes on the top of each radish.  Lay the radishes in a row on top of the cake.

Fence:

For each fence piece you will need four stick pretzels.  Two vertical pretzels will be connected by two horizontal pretzels. Secure each pretzel to one another with wafer chocolate.  Let dry on parchment paper.  Before sticking the fence to the cake, pipe some of the green frosting you already colored around the perimeter base of the cake.  This will be the grass.  Place the fence in front of the grass.

Sign:

Thinly spread the melted wafer chocolate over the two saltine crackers (Or more, depending on how much you want to write on you sign).  Let them dry on the parchment paper.  Once dry, get a pretzel stick and secure it to the opposite side of the cracker.  Let dry on parchment paper.  Write your message on the cracker with your choice of colored frosting then stick the crackers at the end of the vegetable rows. 

Shovel:

Break a pretzel stick in half.  Secure the half stick horizontally on the end of a whole pretzel stick.  After warming a purple fruit chew in the microwave for 10 seconds, shape it into a flat round shape.  This will be the head of the shovel.  Secure the head of the shovel to opposite end of the pretzel stick.  Let dry on parchment paper.  Once dry, you can stick the shovel into the cake and surround it with a few chocolate covered sunflower seeds.

Bowls:

I made these because I had extra vegetables.  I heated some fruit chews in the microwave and then shaped the bowls to my liking. 

Done-skis! Now enjoy a super awesome cake.

-Amber