I'm back with this year's birthday cake offerings for the nephews: a car for the 17 year old learner driver, jumbo sized tacos for the food-obsessed middle nephew and a fruity hummingbird cake for the youngest.
I was particularly pleased with the taco cake. It was so effective and surprisingly simple to construct: four round sponges (two plain, two chocolate) cut in half and stacked on their sides. The outer sponges were covered in fondant whereas the chocolate ones were covered with chocolate butter icing with blitzed bourbon (chocolate) biscuits pressed on top to resemble a beef mince filling. Green butter icing was piped on top for lettuce, red fondant cut into cubes for diced tomatoes/chillies, grated orange fondant for cheese and plain butter icing piped for a blob of sour cream.
I was a bit concerned that a grey Toyota Yaris (what eldest nephew is learning to drive in) would look ridiculously boring as a cake but I think it had sufficient charm. Incorporating the L plate in his name made a fun touch.
I was really surprised youngest nephew requested a "normal" cake this year as opposed to the usual fun, fondant affair but he wanted the same cake I had baked for his mum's birthday (same cake I made for her last year.) It certainly made my life a lot easier as fondant work takes ages and can feel stressful but I couldn't help but feel a little sad that this potentially marks the end of the fun, birthday cake-making era for the boys.
However I didn't let youngest nephew go completely fondant free as I had recently bought fondant alphabet cutters and was determined to use them. I should have bought these years ago! I thought the pack only contained letters so hand cut the "13" but noticed afterwards that there were numbers at the bottom of the box. DOH! I'll know for next time.