Birthday Central!

Tomorrow is my son's seventh birthday party. His actual birthday isn't until the 10th, but it's working out that he's getting several days of celebrating instead of just one. Birthday parties rarely work on Mondays, especially when it's the championship game for the Oregon Ducks, so we had to move the festivities to Saturday. We're just having some family over tomorrow afternoon, and three of his friends. After cake and presents I'll take the four kids to see a movie before dropping them back at their homes.

To make Monday special, I was going to take my son on a Mommy Date to a fancy restaurant he's been wanting to try, but it turns out that it's closed that evening! So he gets to go tonight instead, since I'll be tied up on other evenings. My husband is hoping to meet him for lunch at school, and to make his actual birthday a little more special I'll surprise his class with a treat that afternoon as well. He's getting pretty spoiled this year with all the adjustments!

My kids plan their birthday themes all year, right after the current party has wrapped up. Cakes are always their first thought, and after figuring out what kind of cake they'd like to have, then the rest of the party can be planned. (My daughter is thinking about a Hello Kitty theme in September....) My son actually came up with the coin box cake idea for his Mario party.

I knew it had to be a perfect square, and to achieve that shape, I had to make it four layers...two recipes! That's a lot of cake! He asked for chocolate with cherry filling, so I raided the last of the freezer's local cherries and made an easy, thick filling. French buttercream gave the crumbcoat and a base for the homemade marshmallow fondant. I covered the cake board with brown fondant and scored it to look like bricks. For a "coin," I made rice crispy treat and formed it in a 6-inch cake pan. It then got covered with buttercream also, and fondant to make it more uniform. The marshmallow treat is sturdy and can hold upright well, unlike a delicate cake. I skewered it with dowels to hold it in place.

A few days ago I played with some gumpaste to see if I could make a Mario figure, as the only ones I've been able to locate were on Amazon.com for $18! Of course, with the time I put into making my own figure, that probably would've been worth it! After Mario was formed, I made bricks, stars, and a few mushrooms, per my son's requests.

I had some difficulty with the square shape and positioning the fondant, so the corners aren't as good as they could probably be. It's fun to work with the stuff, however, and every time I learn a little more about how to make the next cake even better!