A Taste of Summer

My mother-in-law recently celebrated her birthday.

One of her very favorite things in the beach, and as a person who shares my child-like love of all things sappy and cute, I endeavored to create a cake as colorful and fun as her joie de vivre.

To decorate, I used vanilla wafers to create sand and some colored frosting to shape the waves with the help of a few Swedish Fish. The beach chair and palm trees were purchased at Create-a-Cake and and the beach towels are fashioned out of some Air Heads candy. George also created a sun (not pictured here) out of some melted yellow decorators sugar.


The inside was a little more tricky. I split a white cake mix into four parts and died each a different color (The most fun part for me besides the decorating was how fun the batter looked in the bowls - like something out of the feasts in the movie Hook). I then poured these into 9 inch cake rounds and baked them according to the box directions.
This was my first attempt and I haven't yet perfected getting the colors perfectly even, but it was still a fun surprise. I think this technique would be easier on a smaller scale like cupcakes where each layer could be smoothed out with less difficulty.
I also chose to use chocolate frosting between the layers and should have stuck with some white or cream cheese frosting dyed a fun rainbow color to add to the fun of the inside.

Have you baked anything fun lately?

Share with me in the comments below!