Tea and Cakes

The Epic Camping Cake!! LOL.. We had a joint birthday for my two youngest, Elijah and Joseph. We had all the family over and as we are a family who enjoys camping, we decided upon a camping themed cake. I used a denser cake recipe to hold up all of the "tree stumps". I used a butter cream/cream cheese frosting for all of the frosting decorating. We used 1, 14 inch round for the base and 2, 6 inch rounds for the back "hill". I cut the base board to the size I wanted to allow for the decorations.

Position you large cake where you want it on the board, and then using your large cake pan cut the bottom 6 inch layer to fit snugly against the back of the cake. Cut a groove for the river out of the top 6 inch layer. Put a layer of frosting on top of the bottom 6 inch layer, position the top layer and crumb coat the whole cake.

I traced the river onto the cake and then using tip #234 I applied the grass to the cake and board. I used tip #2b, which is a large basket weave tip, to place the "water" between the grassy areas as well as the pond at the back of the board. I then used a store bought, GASP, blue tinted sparkly frosting gel to give shine and "movement" to the water. The gasp is because I don't care to use store bought frosting's.... But in this case it worked well.

I then used chocolate rocks to line the river, the fire ring, and other placings on the cake. Using tootsie rolls, make a few logs for your campfire, I cut one mini tootsie roll into 3rds and rolled them smooth. I then used a thin sharp knife to trace lines for bark. Using tip # 352 I made yellow flames on the campfire and painted orange highlights on the flames using orange gel food coloring and a paint brush. We sprinkled a bit of cocoa powder into the fire ring to create ashes. I also used tootsie rolls to create the fallen trees and mini PB cups for the stumps for the fallen trees and around the campfire.

The trees were created using rice krispie treats that had been tinted green. First make up the rice krispie treats adding the food coloring before the rice krispies. Melt chocolate chips, and liberally coat the outside of the sugar cones and then press the krispie treats onto the cones. Keep your hands slightly damp to avoid sticking. I made different size trees by breaking the cones into smaller sizes. Allow to dry. We used large pretzel rods for tree trunks, just breaking them to the size you want. Place the trunks where you would like them. I went back and highlighted the tree with more gel food coloring and a paint brush. Then place on pretzel rods.

The tent was made using fruit roll ups cut to size and placed over graham crackers used to form the shape. Sucker sticks were used to make the tent polls and support for the graham crackers... We used a few german toy animals to place around the cake and I stuck some goldfish crackers in the pond in the back, LOL. Lots a fun, a bit of work. We actually lost power while I was working on it in the middle of the night and I ended up using one of our camping lanterns so I could keep going. I guess it was pretty fitting!

1 14 inch cake layer
2 6 inch cake layers
2 large batches of frosting
tootsie rolls
chocolate rocks
mini PB cups
tips, 234, 2b, 352
sugar cones
chocolate chips
rice krispie treats
sucker sticks
marshmallows