Oct 11, 2009

Superhero birthday cake with marshmallow fondant

One of the requests for my older daughter's 5th birthday was a Batman cake. After a day or so she expanded her request to be a batman, spiderman, superman cake.

I posted a while ago about how we like to make the kid's birthday cakes an important, homemade aspect of each birthday. My mum always made me and my sister lovely cakes and it still makes me feel special that she did that for us, so I want to do the same for my girls.

One of the people that posted a comment on that original cake post was Megan from Megleting. She posted a link to some really cute cakes that she had made and the ones that caught my eye were the three layer cakes that looked like cutie mini wedding cakes. I figured the three superheros theme would be perfect for making a three tier cake with!

The next bit of inspiration came from a post by K from Made by K. She made a whole lot of marshmallow fondant for a friend's wedding cup cake tower and shared a great tutorial on the process. I've never attempted traditional fondant, but the marshmallow version sounded much easier, much cheaper and much more yummy.

The marshmallow fondant was pleasantly easy to make and way gloopy and fun (not for the kids, just for me). I made red, yellow and blue for the three layers. I would definately recommend having a go at making this type of fondant. It tasted great.

The cake itself was chocolate brownie with extra egg to make it a bit more cakey, but it was still very moist and dense. The middle of each layer had raspberry seedless jam and chocolate frosting in them. I put a thin coating of buttercream icing over each layer before puting the fondant on, so it had something to stick to and the surface would be nice and smooth.

Last year I stuck a load of superman party favour rings into the pirate-superhero-mermaid cake, so that the kids could lick the icing off the rings while they were waiting for the cake to be cut. That went down really well, so this year I stuck a load of halloween bat rings into the yellow batman layer of the cake.

The blue webs on the spiderman layer were blue royal icing that was piped on with a really rubbish nozzle. I totally should have made my own out of parchment paper, but you live and learn.
It went down pretty well! There were only two slices to bring back from the party at the park!

18 comments:

debbie koenig said...

Wow! I spent the better part of a week making my 3yo's Handy Manny cake with fondant this summer, and that was with the store-bought stuff. Your cake is gorgeous! So much prettier than mine. I may have to retire my amateur baker's hat.

M for Short said...

Your cake ROCKS. Did you take bids on the two remaining slices?

Beth said...

great job on the cake... I love marshmallow fondant too. So easy!

Lindsey said...

Noooo! Don't retire your baker's hat Debbie! Give the marshmallow fondant a go. Everyone I know that's tried it has said that it's way easier to work with than traditional fondant.

M, the last two slices went to work with the hubster for a couple of people that rock enough for special cake delivery services ;)

Karin van Dam said...

The cake looks great, and very sweet ;-)

Congratulations to you and your little girl!

Emily said...

That looks soooo good! Thanks for sharing the link!

Queen Mommy said...

I had to check out the pirate/super hero/mermaid post too, and I must say, you amaze me with your creativity! ADORABLE cake too! I like to make special cakes for my girls on their birthdays too, and last year was my first attempt at marshmallow fondant. Up to now, I've been able to focus on just one theme for the twins' b-day cakes, but this year will be a bit more of a challenge I think. They are talking about Sleeping Beauty and unicorns, and I'm a little nervous about how to pull all that off (on one cake). Yet, that's nothing when compared to pirates, super heros, and mermaids, so I'll stop fretting now! LOL

A Daft Scots Lass said...

Now thats one funky cake!!! Congrats on an awesome job.

Karin said...

Wow, that's fantastic! Love how each superhero got his own layer, how the colors work so well together and yet each layer is so perfect for that hero. Superbly thought out and executed.

Also love the ring-licking idea...

Salihan said...

That birthday cake ROCKS! Looks fantastic and I can imagine it being delicious with the marshmallow fondant. Yum!- me@salihan.com

Cenzi Stiles said...

well okay! I am gonna give this a shit! oops I mean shot. I was gonna erase that, that and edit it, but it reads too funny.

My son loves Ben 10, so I have a VERY simple logo to work with.

BTW, my other son just had his B-Day and we did your wieners/spaghetti thingees, but just added some coloring to make them more martian like. worked beautifully!

Leann Guzman said...

I LOVE it!! Hopefully I remember this for when my son gets older.

It's funny what we'll do to accomodate our kids. For my daughter's fifth birthday last year she wanted a wedding cake, so I made a three tiered cake, covered it in white frosting, and put strawberries around the outside of each layer. It was pretty without being too "wedding-y" and she loved it. And I had fun making it, too!

LiEr said...

Fantastic cake! Love the colors, especially the batman layer. Of course it was a hit! The middle child has a birthday coming up. She didn't want cupcakes. She wanted a Cake-cake. So maybe I'll try this marshmallow fondant. You've inspired me to at least think about trying it! Thank you!

Almost forgot to mention - we've been stuck indoors because of freak snow, so the girls went "camping" with some of your campfire ideas from that long ago post. They had so much fun. We stuck a little camping lantern in the middle of fire-colored tissue papers (the gift wrap type, not the nose-blowing type) and use tinkertoys and lincoln logs to make a campfire. I totally understood what you/your husband said about it being even cooler if it flickered. Thanks for those ideas!

Valerie @ Frugal Family Fun Blog said...

What an awesome cake! Mark handles all the baking in our household, so I'll be forwarding this post on to him.

Also, I wanted to stop by and tell you about my last post... a tiny pumpkin patch play set made from acorns! It reminded me of something you would do with the girls.

<3,
Valerie

Heather - Dollarstorecrafts.com said...

That's super cute. I researched fondant (and found a different marshmallow fondant recipe/tutorial) when I was making my son's bday cake in July, but I ended up just sticking with buttercream because it worked better with what he wanted. I will definitely keep the marshmallow fondant in mind for future cakes, though!!

My husband made up a silly superhero called Super BatSpider, so this cake would be perfect for that superhero... ha! :)

The cake looks amazing!

Heather - Dollarstorecrafts.com said...

Wait, nevermind, that's the same marshmallow fondant recipe!

Lindsey said...

Glad the squiddlies were a hit with your lot Cenzi! Let us know how the Ben 10 cake works out!

I also really want to see the sleeping beauty/unicorn cake too Queen Mommy!

LiEr, lovely to hear you had a go with the indoor camping. My two are asking to do that again recently too.

Valerie, I loved the pumpkin patch you guys made! My two would love that to go with the polly pocket fairies. I just need to find some acorns darn it!

Heather, does Super Batspider have a costume? It really does sound like the best superhero combo. You've got alien from outer space, vigilante tech genius and genetic mutant all rolled into one!

Anonymous said...

If anybody is reading this, I am making this said superhero cake as a test run for my sons birthday it's his first one here as he is adopted from Haiti so I wanted it to be extra special anyhow is the fondant recipe enough for all three layers?