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Tuesday 20 March 2012

Finn McMissile Cake

We officially have started the festivities for Levi's birthday, and it's still almost 2 weeks until his big day. His real birthday is March 30th. In order to have a gathering of all our friends and their kids we decided to roll Levi's 2nd birthday and our friend's son Tristan's 1st birthday into one big ole bash. What  a great idea, it was a fantastic party. This post I'm dedicating solely to the cake I made for this big ole bash. For a couple reasons, first of all I'm very proud of how it turned out (both in look and in taste), and secondly because I have oodles of photos from making the cake and the party itself, and one post is just not enough space to display all the photos I want to show the world.

The story behind the choice of cake stems mainly from Levi's obsession with his Finn McMissile HotWheels car (and in part from Tristan, who is turning one, really not caring what kind of cake I made). Levi has spent the past 5 or 6 weeks quite attached to his Finn McMissile, he calls it "min-micmisso", he has even refused to go to bed without it, and of course has had numerous ownership battles with his brother over "min-micmisso". We have even gone out and bought a few more McMissiles to keep the fighting to a minimum, but for some reason they only seem to want the one that the other already has, hmm funny. Another reason for the cake choice is redemption, I had attempted (key word) to make a dump truck for Gavin's second birthday, which fell apart before it got to the party, and I wanted to prove that I could make a 3D cake of a vehicle.

The marathon cake baking started out Thursday, I stayed up to 3am baking red velvet cakes and making both buttercream and fondant icing. I found a fantastic recipe for red velvet cake that used beets to colour it red instead of dye, and it even tasted pretty great! Friday I worked a 12hour night, so the official cake decorating began after 3ish hours of sleep on Saturday morning. Good thing I started in the afternoon, and not later in the evening (like I usually do), because I realized that I hadn't baked enough cake or made enough icing to have Finn McMissile come out in the right proportions. I am super-unbelievably lucky to have the most supportive husband in the world, he ran to the grocery store for me and even printed up pictures of Finn so I could get the cake just right. And despite his feeling very unwell, he stayed up until 1am Saturday night helping me carve and ice the cake. I wasn't quite so lucky to go to bed that early, I was up until 4am creating my masterpiece, with National Lampoon's Vacation keeping me company/awake while I decorated.

The sleep deprivation was well worth it, Levi loved the cake! When he saw it in the morning he said "mic-misso, mic-misso!" And of course he couldn't keep his fingers off it, he even poked a little hole in the fondant before we left from home.

 Me Putting Together the Layers of the Cake

 Carved But Not Yet Iced, My Amazing Husband Helps, Buttercream Layer Done, Fondant Started


Tired But Happy, Me With a Finished Cake


My Baby Boy and His Cake

As Levi Would Say..."TaDa!"
The Finished Product

Cutting Into the Cake

10 comments:

  1. Sam - that cake is totally amazing! And the fact that it is red velvet underneath... mmmmmmm. You should start a cake portfolio!

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    1. Thanks Tam. Good idea about the cake portfolio. I'll have to keep track of them before I start forgetting what I've made!

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  2. Hi there! Your cake turned out amazing! I'm jealous!My son's 5th birthday party is on Saturday and I've been surfing the net for inspiration on making a Fin McMissile cake (he loves him). I hope mine turns out half as good as yours :-)

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  3. Amazing cake! I'm making one for my son's fourth birthday. I'm wondering how many sheet cakes you used and what colors you used to get the Finn mcmissile silver/blue. Thank you!

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    1. thanks! I used 4 sheet cakes (9X13), 3 on the bottom and the 4th cut in half to make 2 layers on the top part. For colouring I always use the food colours that are gel rather than liquid, I think I used Wilton brand on this one. I just used the primary blue and a little bit of black, just adding a very little of each and then kneeding the fondant until I liked the colour. sorry I couldn't tell you the exact ratio of blue to black, probably about 6:1 but that's not for sure. good luck with your cake.

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    2. Thank you! That's a huge help!

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  4. hi. i LOVE your cake. my son too is obsessed with Finn and is turning 3 in a couple weeks. i really want to make the same cake but i've never used fondant before. how much fondant did you have to make? and where would i find your recipe for it? i really want to get better at making cakes but i'm also scared it won't turn out. not sure if i should try one out before making his actual one? any advice you have, i'll take. :)

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  5. on second thought, i think it might be less of a disaster if i make these (i have the pan)...do you think i could cover them with fondant or better to just ice them?

    http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/cars-2-cakelet-pan/?pkey=e%7Cnordic%2Bware%2Bcars%2B2%2Bcakelet%2Bpan%7C7%7Cbest%7C0%7Cviewall%7C24%7C%7C1&cm_src=NLASEARCH||NoFacet-_-NoFacet-_-NoMerchRules-_-

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    1. You could probably put fondant on these. I get my fondant recipe from "the cook duke" http://thecookduke.com/fondant-recipe/
      I found this recipe pretty easy to use even when I was first starting out trying to make fondant

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  6. That is one awesome cake...no joking...I have no idea how you both managed to make Finn so perfect. I am looking for ideas in the same Finn avenue as my son has his 4th coming up and he loves Finn. I have to make something for 3 parties. One for the pre-school, one for us on his birthday (my mother and sister are going to be here from America plus Grandpa who is always here and one of my Husband's sisters with her 2 grown kids) and something for 2 weeks later when the entire family from my Husband will come to celebrate. Lots to do, lots to do....this is one fabulous idea that I love and would like to do for him but which party to use it for??...still unsure lol. In any event...Love - LOve - LOVE the job you both did and I hope what I make turns out as nicely as yours. Keep up the good work MOM & DAD!!!!

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