Making Birthday Cakes at Home: The CARS Cake. Living With Food Allergies Series

This spring, four children have died from anaphylaxis, and of those four, three had peanut allergies, like my son, who is also allergic to cashews and chickpeas.  In honor of Food Allergy Awareness Week 2013, I'm posting pictures of my children's nut allergy friendly birthday cakes.  

If you remember from my list of nut allergy rules, we avoid desserts and bakery food at all costs, because nuts are so common in baked goods.

After our son was diagnosed with nut allergies, I realized that I would have no choice but to learn to bake and decorate cakes, a task I usually leave to my mom and sister, who are excellent at it.  But they live five hours away, and since I can't rely on bakery cakes as an option, my mom and sister have started teaching me how to decorate cakes.  I really think people go a little bit overboard with the fancy cakes these days, so even though I usually try to keep things simple, I can't help but be a little jealous when I see the fancy cakes people purchase from bakeries.  My children will never have bakery cakes, because of my toddler's nut allergies.  But since I'm learning how to do them myself, maybe they can have fun cakes anyway, even if they're not professional quality. This week, I'll share my cakes with you.

The CARS Cake

My son is all about Lightning McQueen and Mater, so I decided a Cars themed cake would be perfect for him.  This was the first fondant cake that I made completely on my own.  I did most of the work late at night, while the kids were sleeping.  When I was trying to put on the finishing touches, I let the kids "help" decorate for the party by putting Cars stickers on the plastic table cloth.  I was desperate!

Step 1:  Choose a theme and find inspiration.  I browsed Pinterest for Cars cakes, pinning every cake I liked, no matter how complicated or simple.  You can check out my Pinterest board for birthday cake ideas here if you want to see the cakes that inspired my final creation.

My son's birthday cake.  This is the first fondant cake I made completely on my own.

Step 2:  Get realistic about your cake decorating skills.  I stink at piping frosting.  I know this.  And I have no idea how to create large objects out of fondant or modeling chocolate.  So I skipped any ideas that would require extensive use of those skills.  I also purchased a safe box mix, like Betty Crocker, for my cake.  I knew better than to attempt a homemade cake when I had so much decorating to do.

Step 3:  Bake the cake and let it cool.  Dirty ice it.  If you've watched Cake Boss, you know what this means.  You can use Wilton's* decorator frosting or make your own.  I chose to make mine and it was so much better than Wilton.  I found this recipe on youtube, but any recipe will work just fine.  Nut-free option: Use a safe frosting and safe extracts, like McCormick's butter flavoring or vanilla.  My favorite is the Honduran vanilla we've brought home from mission trips. Yum!

*A word about Wilton:  Their icing is iffy.  Last time I checked, the large cans were  not nut free but the small ones were.  Their sprinkles are iffy too.  Some are processed with nuts and some are not.  Their flavorings are usually unsafe, as is their fondant.  If you use any food items from Wilton, proceed with caution and remember to check every label every time.

Step 4:  Make your marshmallow fondant, work in food coloring until it's the right color, and cover your cake.  Again, I followed a recipe my mother had come across on youtube.  Marshmallow fondant is cheap, quick and easy to make, fun to work with, and of course, nut free.  I used the Wilton fondant tools, like the roller, mat, and smoother.  They worked out beautifully.  A pizza cutter is a great way to cut out your fondant.  AmeriColor is a great nut free food coloring.  I bought mine on Amazon.

Step 5:  Sugar sheet shapes!  Sugar sheets are one of my mom's favorite new things to try.  They're not cheap, but they're an easy way to add some pizzazz to your cake.  The colorful sheet of sugar paper is attached to a sheet of plastic, so I simply flip the paper over and use a marker to draw my designs on the plastic.  Then I use a clean pair of scissors to cut out the design.  A dab of water makes it adhere to the cake.  For our Cars cake, I drew objects on brown sugar sheets that reminded me of the landscape of Radiator Springs, white clouds, a black two, and yellow lines for the road on the number two.  Last time I checked, sugar paper were nut free, but with Wilton, you never know, so be sure to check before you buy!   

Step 6:  Pipe the icing.  I chose a simple design for the edges of my cake, using just a basic round tip.  Then I wrote my son's name on the cake and added a couple of icing blobs to help the cars and candles stick to the top.  Again, I stink at piping, so I try to avoid extensive piping work.

Step 7:  Top with toys to make the cake super cute.  For ours, we added Lightning McQueen and Mater, along with Cars themed candles.  

Step 8:  Enjoy!  And invite another nut allergic child to enjoy your cake too!  One of my dearest friends has a son with a nut allergy.  If I'm going to all the time and trouble of making a nut free cake for my 2 year old, then why not invite her kids over to enjoy the cake too?  For once, her son could sit at a birthday party and enjoy the same cake as every other guest.  No cupcake brought from home.  No funny looks from other kids.  Just a little boy enjoying a piece of cake.  Out of habit, he started to ask me if the ice cream was safe, so I interrupted him to tell him that yes, everything in my house was safe for him, including the ice cream.  He grinned big and dug in!  Andrew, my two year old, has no idea of the things his mommy does to keep him safe. All that mattered to him was seeing his favorite characters sitting on top of the cake.  He was a happy boy! 

Do you make your own cakes for your children?  Have you attempted fondant at home before?