Logan and I have participated in the Cub Scout bake off for the last three years. We have had a lot of fun coming up with ideas and trying to make the images in Logan's mind come to life on a cake. This year the Scout Committee decided to change it up a bit. The rules were meant to curtail some of us, but when it comes to baking with Logan, there is no curtailing us. The rules were simple, we had to use cupcakes and everything on the cake had to be edible. No real toys and since we weren't sure if we could use toothpicks to up cupcakes... we did without.
Since it's our last year, Logan wanted to do some kind of tribute to the scouts, at first he wanted to do all of the scouting events that he did throughout the year. Thunderbird games, parade, camping, Maritime aquamarine, pine wood derby and such. I thought this was too big and there was no way we would be able to do all that so I asked him to narrow it down. He choose camping.
We started out with a little camp site and it grew to a lake, animals and log cabins before we knew it our drawing had about 75 cupcakes. It ended up being approximately 85 cupcakes. Below you will find some pictures of our journey.
First we start with a design which Logan and I came up with at Chili's on our date. We used crayons and drew on one of their kid menus. So much fun planning and seeing how excited he gets over different ideas.
The night before the event, Logan was in the kitchen making cupcakes. I mixed the batters and he poured and placed the cupcakes in the oven. While the cupcakes were baking Logan and I started making the animals out of fondant and caramel candies and any candy that was easy to mold. Some were difficult for us, we never got the bear done or the wolf but we were able to get a few small animal together. OK we were horrible at paws, most of the animals didn't have legs but since they were buried in the icing we didn't care too much.
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| Animals and new idea to hold up the sugar cone trees |
Logan was so proud of his skunk, and the beavers. We aren't artists but we can follow directions. In order to make some of these animals, we followed the directions for the molding clay packages. When they lay it out for you, it's pretty easy to get something resembling an animal. Hard to see but there is a squirrel and one chipmunk in there too. Yellow duck didn't make the cut, it got eaten by Sofia. LOL.
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| Tired looking little boy at 7AM |
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| Logan's on the left and mine on the right |
On Friday morning, both Logan and I got up early before school and started putting the cabins together. We skipped on the doors and window so it was easy to put together with chocolate to hold up the structure. By the time Logan went to school we had all the figures done, and part of the cake assembled.
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| That was one bowl of icing many more to go! |
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| Cutting the sugar cone trees and the board to fit in refrigerator |
While Logan was in school I piped all the grass and the trees and realized that I needed to cut the board in half so it could fit in my refrigerator. I made all the colors of icing that we would need and and all the crumbs so when Logan came home we just had to finish up the campsite making tents, placing the animals whenever they looked good and add the finishing touches. Logan thought this looked like the upstate Boy Scout reservation in upstate New York. The area is called Durland, therefore I took a graham cracker added red chocolate and wrote the name and added that to the front. I thought it added a nice touch. So we called our cupcake/cake design Durland.
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| Finished cupcakes design at GW |
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| Top View of the Cake |
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| A very happy little boy who won gold for best presentation |
Logan worked really hard on this project as did I. It was big, compared to the others but then again people should expect big from me after the last 4 years of entering this event. Did some people not appreciate it and make some uncalled remarks, absolutely! I felt the new rules were met to curtail some of us crazy bakers, but the rules were followed to a tee. All cupcakes and all edible.
Well Logan didn't win Scouts choice, which is what he aims for but he didn't care, he was just so thrilled to win Gold for Best Presentation and me..... I might be making a Skylander cake for one of the moms at the event. I have never baked for money, my confidence not so high but I am willing to give it a try. It should be fun!
Thanks for stopping by I hope you enjoyed our story.
Hugs Delia
