“Cars 2” cakelets for the birthday Munchkin!

In case you’ve been living under a rock (or just don’t have a child under the age of 10 in the house) Cars 2 comes out tomorrow! We’re not excited about this or anything…

I’m pretty obsessed with Nordicware molded cake pans (I’m sure you’ll see more of my collection over the coming months). Knowing this, & knowing that they came out with a limited-edition Cars 2 cakelet pan, & knowing that The Munchkin loves Cars & had a birthday was coming up, my dad sent her an early birthday present. So guess what we did today for The Munchkin’s 2nd birthday?

I baked the cakelets last night using the recipe on the insert that came with the pan. I love these inserts because they calculate the exact right amount of batter for each molded pan! So perfect. However, I realized quickly that leveling in the pan was out of the question; pieces were breaking off faster than I could saw. So I just popped them out of the pan as-is & trimmed them with a paring knife this morning.

Then I made the frosting.

7 sticks of butter, 4 pounds of powdered sugar, & a diabetic coma later, I had a ridiculous amount of frosting. I’m always so paranoid I’ll run out, that I make way too much. Though this time I made extra on purpose for The Munchkin’s Toodles cake for Saturday’s birthday party (I told you it was Sweets Week at our house!). For the vanilla, I used my “add some powdered sugar &/or cream until it looks right but will probably end up being too thick anyway” method — don’t recommend it. For the chocolate, however, I used this recipe from A Southern Fairytale. Super delicious, & the perfect consistency for spreading! I also added a couple tablespoons of meringue powder to each to help them set up more quickly, but should’ve added more to the chocolate.

Then we decorated. & decorated. & decorated.

The sheer tininess of scale was almost too much My Husband The Closet Ace of Cakes & me! We’d never frosted anything that small before. (Why not fondant, like they show in the product photos, you ask? Because My Husband The Persnickety views the sheer existence of fondant as an affront to his palate. Plus, I’m completely self-taught as a cake decorator & have never learned to use it.)

But The Munchkin didn’t mind one bit!

As long as Guido tastes good, that’s all that matters, right?

Finally we got into a groove & finished 5 of the 8 (The Munchkin was happy to take care of the rest). Do you recognize the characters from the new movie?

We used mini-Oreos for the tires (though you could use more of the black-dyed chocolate icing if you want), & mini-M&Ms for the eyes. I had bought a bag of regular M&Ms so we’d have the full complement of eye colors, but they were far too big for the size of the cakes. As My Husband The Comedian put it, “They could be Anime cakes…” So we dug out a still-sealed tube of mini-M&Ms left over from Christmas — yes, Christmas, but they were still good — so our eye-color choice diminished significantly.

I made the cake board the night before with a Wilton cake board (totally worth the investment — I’m still on the same package I bought 3 years ago!), construction paper, & a logo I printed out off the Internet. Free & easy!

The Munchkin requested that “Wight-Queen” be her birthday cake. He was just the right size for 2 candles!

She was so happy about her cakes. All day today, she kept telling everyone we met, not that it was her birthday, but that she made “Cars cakes.” So all the work & powdered-sugar-inhalation were worth it!

See you later! Ka-chow!

(P.S. If you’re heading to the theatre this weekend to see the movie, come back & leave a comment letting me know how it was — & whether it’d be too scary for a 2-year-old. Thanks!)

“Share Awesomeness” Thursdays at The 36th Avenue