When I was little, my mom would always get me birthday cakes from a local baker.  She would do any design that was my fancy at the time.  They always looked and tasted wonderful and thanks to her extreme disorganization, the cakes were always a little late but she always threw in a dozen delicious cookies to apologize for the tardiness.  Now that I have a child of my own, I was curious as to how I would handle cakes on his birthdays.  Do I go to an unorganized baker?  Do I buy from the grocery store?  Do I make simple cakes myself?

It was my mother-in-law who got me turned on to Wilton cake pans.  She made character-themed cakes from Wilton cake pans for her sons when they were children and they both reminisce about them to this day.  I decided that I wanted to do cakes like this for my son.

For his first birthday, Cookie Monster was the cake.  Cookie Monster was a theme to his party.  I got the Wilton food coloring gels to get the colors nice and deep.

I’ll be the first to admit that I have neither the patience or the talent to make a fancy cake.  If you look closely you can see mistakes that I made, but all in all it was an adorable cake.  The blue icing had that muppet fur look, and the basic picture is recognizable.  My son isn’t going to look at a cake like this and say, “Geez Mom, you made a ton of mistakes!  It looks so sloppy!”  It’s supposed to be fun, and it was.

It was very fun.

This year, the birthday party theme was dinosaurs.  Again, I turned to Wilton for the cake pan, and again it appeared that my novice abilities and minimal patience didn’t ruin the party at all.

Again, I used the Wilton gel food coloring because of the depth of color they achieve.  The cake and cupcakes were a rousing success and I’d like to encourage anybody out there to try these for a little one.  If it’s a niece or nephew or a son or daughter or grandchild, etc. and you want to do something special, make them a cake.  If you’re abilities worry you, just go out and buy a set of tips (Wilton makes these as well) and go to their website and pick out a cake pan that will thrill your little one the most.  They have hundreds of cake pans and many of them are in the shapes of today’s favorite children’s characters.  Each pan comes with specific instructions on how to decorate the cake and what tips to use, etc.

Also, Wilton is a big name and can be found just about anywhere.  It’s not hard to find.  I know that times are tough for some people and sometimes splurging on the bakery cake might be a bit much for some so I’d like to encourage you to look into these cakes for parties.  They are fun, make a great centerpiece, and it’s a personal think to bake a cake for someone like this.  I know that I always feel touched when I put one of these cakes before my son.  Sure, I’ve only done it twice, but it’s such a sweet tradition and I hope others might try it.