It’s time for our annual Birthday Blitz. Three of the kids have birthdays within the next month…which means treats for school parties and kid parties and present shopping and more than one slumber party. Oh goodness. Pray for me.
Last weekend was my ten-year old’s party, and when I asked what kind of cake she wanted — well, this was it. A Skittles cake. It’s possible I could have just put out the candy, and skipped the cake or made it from cardboard or something and everyone would have been just as happy. But it did taste pretty good, and it looked so bright and festive, and my son pointed out that it was very easy to cut everyone an equal piece by just counting the licorice strips.
It had her first initial — an A — in the middle, with Skittles all around, and licorice along the sides. The cake itself is just a basic vanilla cake with white frosting. Because when you’re getting all complicated with the decorations, it’s best not to overdo things. Better instead to rest up so you are ready at 2am to go in and tell the giggly ten-year olds to just go to sleep already.
So. We started with a white, frosted cake.
I separated out one color of candy (in this case, orange), and used a wooden craft letter for the stencil. I just started lining around the A with candy
and filling things in as best I could. I mostly tried not to line the candies up, I just stuck them where there was space.
When I removed the stencil, the left side looked really good, but the right side looked…wonky. I don’t know. I fiddled with it a bit until I got a shape I was happy with.
So while the stencil was a good jumping-off point, I did have to mess with it a bit. Then I added a bit more frosting to the back of the licorice, and stuck it all along the sides of the cake.
I trimmed it with kitchen scissors so it was flush with the top of the cake. And that was it. The Skittle process took about half an hour, and the licorice maybe another 15-20 minutes.
Waaaaaaaait a minute…do you suppose the Skittles cake was why everyone was up until 2am? Huh.
Ingredients
- white cake mix
- white cake frosting
- 1 lb Skittles, with one color separated out
- craft letter stencil
- 1 pkg Twizzlers candy or red licorice
Instructions
- Bake the white cake according to package instructions. Cool.
- Frost and let sit for 10 minutes.
- Press letter stencil very lightly into the cake.
- Using multicolored Skittles, fill in the outside of the cake, and any inner parts of the stencil.
- Very gently lift stencil. Dot on frosting if it came off on the stencil.
- Fill in stencil with solid colored Skittles.
- Put a dot of frosting on each licorice strip and line them along the sides of the cake.
- Trim licorice until they're even, and flush with the top of the cake.
Oooooh — and also, I’ve just jumped on Yummly! Have you tried it? It’s a recipe website where you can “yum” your favorites, and collect them into categories (i.e. dinner, dessert — that sort of thing). I’ve found some tasty things on there. If you’re on it, you can click the “yum” button just above this recipe to add it to your collection. So fun (and a lifesaver at 5pm when I’m trying to figure out what to make for dinner).
For more kids’ party ideas, check these out:
–Fun, Inexpensive Birthday Parties
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