Happy 16th Birthday

My daughter has big ideas, and then she wan't me to carry them out. Somehow, I've gotten the reputation that I can do most anything.  Well, I can't really, but I CAN do a lot of things.  The best part is that now, she is willing to help me do a lot of things, especially since she found the idea for these cupcakes somewhere on the internet.  She wanted to take them to her play production class on her birthday.  (It's a little less formal there, having class on the stage in the auditorium does that.)  I made the cupcakes, and colored the frosting and started frosting like mad.  Lynette cut two slits in the top of the cupcake to stick the ends of the candy in.  (We used "extreme airheads" from Target.)  Then it was an easy thing to put "clouds" on with the decorating too.  As she said, "clouds don't all have to be the same"  We knocked these out together in less than and hour.  She got her mead of praise at school, and a whole bunch of practice. 

The next challenge she handed me, also for her birthday, was a rainbow layer cake, which she also found on the internet. It went a lot easier than I thought it would.  I used a cup of colored batter in a 9" round pan, which took less than 1 1/2 boxed mixes.  I think next time I might try 1 1/4 cups.  It will depend on how tall you want the cake to be, and if it will fall over if it gets too tall.   

Of course, not thinking it through, I started with the red layer, which I thought should go on the bottom, but Lynette said red goes on the top, "just look at any rainbow".  (Good Grief, does it really matter.)  Since I only had two pans, I had to find a place for the red layer to sit, while I started on the purple.  She wanted the colors on the darker side, so I used paste colors for the blue, red, orange and yellow.  A couple of good squeezes took care of the purple and green.

One thing I discovered is that it is VERY hard to spread a cup of batter evenly in the pan, so I had a few slightly uneven layers, until I got the hang of it. 

I put the layers together with butter frosting.  (I like good tasting frosting.)

The cake was a little lopsided.  I think I had an uneven number of lopsided layers.

Sealing the layers with a thin layer of frosting, makes the next layer easier. 

We decorated the top with some leftover candy from the cupcakes.  Since no one around here can manage to put things dead center, we went for the charmingly off-center look. 

The first slice.

Let them eat cake!

And then we did all the other cool birthday things, like candles which girls like until they turn 21 or so,

and presents.

and cards, (from her almost three year old nephew), 

and family.

I'm sure glad she's mine.