Birthday Cake Pinterest Style

This past weekend we celebrated Cameron's first birthday.  He's survived despite his siblings for a year now, and it seemed like a good time to celebrate with some cake.  I like to make fun cakes for my kids' birthdays, so when I saw this one all over Pinterest it seemed like the way to go:

True to form, I saw the idea and figured I could wing it.  It never even occurred to me that you might need special bakeware to make the dot parts of the cake.  When Saturday morning arrived, Brynnie and I got down to the serious business of cake making.  She was very excited.  It was at this point that I actually read the instructions on this blog and discovered that I was supposed to have a cake pop pan.  Well, I wasn't about to run out to the store and buy a new pan, so I came up with my own substandard method.

First, we mixed up a white cake mix and divided it into fourths.

I've never used gel food coloring before, but the colors were so bright that I think it is what I will be using from now on.

Second, we made mini-muffins.  This was my substandard substitute for cake pops.  In the end it worked out okay, but the polka dots were more muffin-shaped then perfectly round.  You win some, you lose some. We baked them just until they were set and then let them cool completely.

Third, we made the cake layers.  Brynn spooned a little bit of white cake batter into the bottom of the round pans, and then we arranged the different colored muffins in a random pattern.  Next, we spooned the rest of the batter over each muffin, so they were all covered.  Once the layers were baked and cooled, we frosted the whole thing.  From the outside the cake looked pretty ordinary.

Inside, though, the polka dots were a fun surprise.

Cameron was very pleased with how the cake tasted and made a perfectly delightful mess.  We finally got a kid who ate his 1 year birthday cake - all the others wouldn't touch theirs.

Happy Birthday, Little Man.

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