Brad's Birthday & More

There's nothing like promising to create a birthday cake that looks like a Nintendo game controller to challenge yourself!

This is the birthday cake Katrina and I made up for Brad. It's a 2-layer reverse-marble fondant-covered, 1/4 sheet monster. Reverse marble is where you make one layer of yellow cake with chocolate marbling through it, then the reverse, or second layer, is made of chocolate with yellow marbling in it.

It took a bit to discover the right mix of fondant so we could actually work with it. We wanted a buttercream frosting flavor, so we used a product called Duff's, but it was too oily and kept sticking to the glass table. We found that mixing Duff's with Wilton's fondant gave us what we were looking for, something that tasted like buttercream, but worked like fondant should. Once I was able to work with the fondant in a predictable fashion, I lightly frosted the cake with milk chocolate frosting, then laid the white fondant on the cake.

At this point, most of the cake is done and I'm cutting out the 'Plus Button' for the left side of the Nintendo controller.

So, the white outline is done, and now I'm using a ruler to measure the cut out for the black center of the plus-button.

And, of course, I had an AutoCAD drawing of the cake with measurements to help us with the layout.

And to think this came about because Katrina & Brad saw this picture on the My Food Looks Funny website. Brad thought it would be neat to have something like this, only a little better...

Well, we were successful in getting it to the house in time for the party. It was funny to see some of Brad's friends take a look in the box and say; "Now That's Old School".

And it's time for the unveiling.

Here it is, about to come out of the box.

So, we removed the cake from the box and Brad just stood there and stared...

He thought for a moment...

And then, he tried to play the controller...

Katrina put the candles on the cake and lit them, while Brad stacked a couple of Mario Brothers stuffed characters in front of the cake.

I recognize Yoshi, Flying Mario and regular Mario, but I can't remember what the other one is.

After blowing out the candles, Brad started cutting away...

Here is the aftermath of the first pass-around of the cake, but when we left the party hours later, only about a third of the cake was left.

For some reason, Katrina & Brad decided to take Jaina the cat, for a swim. She was quite loud in voicing her opinion about her watery situation...

So they put her on the pool deck...

...and I grabbed a towel and started drying Jaina off. She really doesn't look all that pleased with being wet.

Awwww, what a cutie!

While I worked on 'polishing' the cat, the kids went back to monkeying around in the pool...

As a matter of fact, they tossed the monkeys all over the pool.

Bradley is about to make a splash...

After the pool antics, we had some fun with pictures, then it was time to open the birthday gifts.

Apparently, this package was tough to open. I wonder what's inside?

Ah! New sneakers!

And a book, too!

Next was Katrina's gifts and she hid them all over the house with a set of clues to guide him to his prizes. There was one in the kitchen cupboard, then this one under Jaina's bed...

Then, he found one in this Mexican Cheminea (chimney) oven.

Then, there was a gift hidden under the bathroom sink too.

After the gift session was over, the kids decided to throw Brad into the pool. Well, sorta...

And in he goes with a resounding splash.

At this point, Katrina chose to personally wish Brad a happy birthday. So, it's time to go. I'm sure there will be more to tell you later.