Baking Birthday Cakes (Marshmallow Fondant Project Part 2)

Four recipes of cake baked and set out to cool.

Baking and decorating 2 cakes for the same occasion is a daunting task.  A couple of years ago before starting this blog I made our nephew 2 cakes and drove them to Gosport, Indiana in the heat of summer.  He was home from the service of our country and there was a family get together to celebrate his return and birthday.  There are so many of us two cakes were necessary to have enough to go around.  Success was due to freezing the cakes after finishing them and allowing them to thaw during the drive.  It  worked beautifully.

This challenge is to decorate 2 children's cakes for the same day and have both children think their cake is wonderful.

12" layers

Today I have baked 4 cakes.  Two strawberry and two devils food.  See Strawberry Shortcake Cake 3/23/12, Brian's Red Devils Food Cake 6/11/10, Fresh Miracle Strawberry Cake 3/5/12,  or simply use 4 box cakes, 2 Strawberry and 2 Devils Food.  The first 2 cakes were baked all in one pan, a large 12" diameter 3" tall round that baked in the same amount of time a 9" x 13" cake would bake.  The second 2 were baked in regular 2" round pans.

I will not use one 8" round in each flavor for this project but will wrap it and freeze it for later use.

My plan is to position the small layer flush to the edge of the large layer on one side creating both a platform and a staircase effect,

The toppers are different on each cake with one having a real toy truck and toy tools atop the platform and the other having a toy T-Rex dinosaur with two babies and a cave.  The lower level should be large enough to accommodate "Happy Birthday" their names and a big "4".

So day two is done for this project except for cooling and wrapping the layers.  Tomorrow I have invited my 2 granddaughters to come help with the decorating.  That will allow me a, "panic and do over" day if I need it.  Nothing wrong with a plan "B".  I just hope we wouldn't need it!

Note to myself:  Purchase new 8" round cake pans.   I just made the exact same cakes twice and the 12" newer pans baked flat and were beautiful.  The 40 year old 8" pans crowned and will have to be trimmed before frosting and decorating.  Pans must be shot?  Makes no sense to me otherwise unless perhaps because the old pans are much shallower than the new ones?