Camouflage Cake

 My son's girlfriends birthday was a few days ago.  Like with all the kids, I just had to make her a birthday cake!  I love making cakes for people.

She loves camo so when I was looking for ideas I came across this cake mix at the store.  It costs $2.98 per box.  I was thinking the cake looked cool but surely I could do that for cheaper!

I had a box of white cake mix at home that I paid probably around $.50 for with coupons a couple weeks ago.  I made up the mix and then divided it into 4 bowls.  Using the wilton food coloring I had on hand, I colored the batter camo colors.

I used 2 8" round cake pans.  I took spoonfuls of each of the colors of batter and dropped them  sporadically in the pan.  

I baked the cakes according to the directions on the box.  

They turned out awesome!  I used the same colors to dye white frosting for decorating the cake.  

Here was the end product.  

And of course here is a picture of the inside of the cake!  

Homemade Birthday Cake

My third son celebrated his 7th birthday last month.  I always make all the kids birthday cakes.  His request this year was a bit over the top. 

"Mom, I want a football cake with Lego guys versing Star Wars guys."

Usually I would do one of those.  I am not very artsy so a football, or a Lego guy or a Star Wars character would have been doable for me.  Here is what I came up with.

I usually do not buy anything for decorations when it comes to cakes.  This defeats the purpose of making my own to "save money".  However we did buy the mini Star Wars figures for this cake.  We just incorporated it into his birthday gift.  The Lego guys were from Legos we already had and my second oldest son was happy to make some characters for his brother's cake. 

I figured even with buying the figurines that went on top of the cake I still probably saved money over buying a store bought cake.  I spent $.79 on the mix itself, made homemade buttercream frosting, and spent $10 on the figures. 

I have a few more pictures of  my kids birthday cakes you can see here.  Do you make your own cakes?  This post is linked to the Frugal Tuesday Tip hosted here at Learning the Frugal Life.

Homemade Driver License Cake

February is a busy month for us for birthdays. My 2 oldest boys celebrate 5 days apart. Here is the cake I made for my oldest boy. He turned sweet 16 this year. Do you know how hard it is to find sweet 16 decorations for boys?? We never did find any. They were all for girls.

I was a little stumped on what to do for his cake theme this year. My husband offered up the suggestion to make a drivers license cake. Perfect!

Homemade Birthday Cake

We celebrated my son's 5th birthday a few weeks ago. His current love is super heroes. After discussing with him what kind of cake he wanted and googling images on the internet we came up with a plan.

It doesn't look like much but it took me about 2 hours to make these fondant decorations. Do you know how difficult it is to make a bat out of fondant and a pairing knife?It was totally worth it though to see the look on his face when it was done. The cake was a simple store bought cake mix. The frosting was homemade buttercream.
You can view other cakes that I have made here.

Another Homemade Birthday Cake

I thought I would share with you another birthday cake I made. We celebrated my daughters first birthday this past weekend. Here are her cakes. The big cake is 2 9x13 cakes put together and the small round cake is one that I made in a Pyrex dish.

I cheated and used store bought cake mix that I stocked up on for $.77 a box. The frosting was a new buttercream recipe that I tried and it was delicious!!

Here is the recipe. You can find the original recipe here.

Buttercream Frosting
3 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla extract *I used a little more, about 2 tsp
1-2 Tablespoons heavy whipping cream

Mix sugar and butter with mixer till blended then on high for 3 minutes. Add vanilla and cream and blend for another minute. Add more cream till you reach desired constistancy.

Here are my little baggies I used to decorate. They are just sandwich sized baggies and I cut a small hole in the corner.And here is my daughter enjoying her first birthday cake!

Homemade Birthday Cake

I seem to share a homemade birthday cake every couple months (since I have so may people in my family that is about how often I have to make them). Making homemade cakes is such an easy way to save money on birthdays. For this cake the mix cost $.77 and then the frosting is made using ingredients I already had on hand (and my MIL, since the cake was made at her house).

My #3 son's birthday was at the end of September and he is really into Star Wars. He requested Jango Phet or Boba Phet for his cake. Can you tell which one this is? Don't worry. I had no idea either until I looked at a picture in one of his books. This is Janga Phet.

If your interested you can view other cakes I have made here and here.

Homemade Butter Cream Icing

My two oldest boys birthdays were in February. Each year when I make their cakes I try and go with what they are interested in at the moment. One is really into his new Sonic video game and the other has a love for the army.

Instead of purchasing frosting from the store I now make it from scratch. Here is the Wilton Butter Cream frosting that I used. Very easy and so yummy!

1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup margarine or butter
1 tsp clear vanilla (mine wasn't clear)
4 cups sifted confectioners sugar
2 T milk

In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

This post is linked to Frugal Tuesday Tip.

Birthday and Cakes

Today is my oldest son's birthday. He is 15. I have his cake in the oven and I am going to try and make the wilton butter cream frosting recipe.

I make the kids cake for each of their birthdays. I try and do a theme that they are interested in at the present time. 15 is a hard age though. Last year I did an x-box controller and the year before that I did an mp3 player. He is still into both but I don't want to repeat.

He is also into anything that has to do with the army. It may look gross but I have decided to do a camouflage cake. I will post pictures once it's done.

Another Homemade Cake

My son celebrated his 5th birthday a couple weeks ago. Baking our own cakes is a great way to save a little money on birthdays. You figure a store bought cake will cost you around $15 or so. This homemade cake cost me about $2. While frugal, it has also become a fun tradition and the kids look forward to their cakes each year.

His cake request was a teddy bear with a blue shirt (his favorite color) and chocolate chip eyes and nose. Here is what I came up with.I checked out the cake tin from the library and then just used chocolate frosting for most of it. The blue was done in vanilla frosting colored with dye. He was very pleased!

Frugal Graduation Cake

Graduation time is upon us. I was asked to make this cake for my husbands cousins graduation party last year. I have always made my kids birthday cakes but have never made a cake for a large party before. I was very honored and a little nervous to say the least. Here is how they turned out.I made 6 cakes total. 3 white and 3 chocolate. The cake mixes were roughly $.88 each. The frosting was a bit more expensive because I bought it already made. I think the total cake costs around $15 to make. I know now for future large cake orders I will find my own butter cream recipe to make (which I did finally, I posted the recipe here). That would cut the cost even more. Anyone have any great icing recipes they want to share?

Birthday Cupcakes

Here are the birthday cupcakes I made Tony. Pokeballs :)
Happy Birthday Tone!

Homemade Birthday Cake

Ok, sorry if you have read my other blog and this is a duplicate, but I had to post a picture of the cake I made for my son for his birthday party tomorrow. He is 13 and LOVES his MP3 player!