It all started about three weeks ago…
My son (second of four) was turning four. I still can’t believe it. He is so smart and sooo funny…and, well I’m getting off track. He was turning four and he’s been on this serious Spider-Man kick. I mean the kid has three costumes. THREE! And not the cheap plastic ones. No these have the built-in muscles (he’s sooo cute in it 
.
Anyway, he has literally been begging me for a Spider-Man cake for his birthday. But not just a sheet cake with a picture of the Spider guy. No. He wanted a Spider-Man head cake. That’s right. A regular superhero bust.
You see, a friend of his had a birthday party not long ago and Grant (that’s my son) was there. And the little boy had a…you guessed it…a Spider-Man head cake. Which my baby boy thought was the absolute coolest thing ever. From then on he went nonstop about it.
So, I did what any good mother would do. I contacted the little boy’s mother to find out where she had it made. She gave me the baker’s name and number and I made the call. Lucky me, she was available and agreed to do it. The price was a little high but, well you know how it is. Grant has the eyes. The ones you can’t say “no” to. The high price was a small price to pay. She’d have done in a week.
Whew. Now I could just focus on getting the party ready, sending out invitations, etc.
And that’s when the wheels came off the bus.
Exactly one week before the party, I called the baker to check on the cake’s progress. And I couldn’t reach her. So I tried the next day. Still no luck. I’m now five days out and I’m starting to sweat a little. On day four I call again and I get an answer. But it’s not the baker. It’s the baker’s son. Seems the dear old lady came down with a super bad case of the flu and was in the hospital. The cake…my son’s dream Spidey bust…was not even on her radar.
True I felt very bad for her but the sudden panic I now found myself in eclipsed my humanitarianism. What was I going to do?? I called every baker I could. The short story is no luck.
I tried everything. I scoured online looking for bakers. I speed read (is that a word) every tip I could find. Nothing. No luck. Oh there was a lot of information about creating really cool cakes, but I just couldn’t find what I needed. I had come to the realization that if this cake was going to get done, I was going to have to do it myself. And you have to know my cakes have always seemed more like hardtack.
So when my panic was reaching fever-pitch, I headed off to the bookstore…my last hope. After combing the shelves looking for anything about childrens birthday cakes and finding nothing, I started to go. Suddenly, one book caught my eye. It was a single title crammed between two larger books. I had almost missed it. I pried it out and thumbed through it and, I kid you not, knew instantly that this was what I was looking for. It was called 50 Easy Party Cakes.
Now I didn’t find instructions for the coveted Spider-Man cake. But I found several similar designs that I was able to quickly adapt to make my son’s dream birthday cake. The book was sooo easy to follow. Simply put…it helped me to create exactly what my son wanted…and I can barely make muffins.
It took a few hours, and I’m sure Spider-Man purists would have arched an eyebrow. BUT the cake turned out great, if I do say so myself. And my four-year-old son absolutely loved it! And that smile was worth more than gold to me. This book was my life-saver.
If you’re interested in 50 Easy Party Cakes, then I can’t recommend it highly enough. Just click any of the links and they’ll take you to Amazon where you can take a peak at it.
So that’s my story and why I started this blog about childrens birthday cakes. I hope you enjoyed it. I’d love to hear what you think.
Happy cake baking!
Alyse