The LEGO Cake

As a child, my mother always made our birthday cakes, and I have strongly held the belief that real mothers do just that (no matter that it can get really stressful and hard on the rest of the family).  Cakes are the center of the celebration, and you, too, can make a nice cake.

For weeks I've been thinking about Andrew's party and what to make.  Yay, for the internet and the wealth of ideas that can be found.  The most common (and pretty easy) creation is the LEGO brick:



While it would have been fine, I wanted something more.  Then I found minifigure cake pops.

Now, unless you've been living under a rock for the last several years, you know that cake pops are all the rage.  They are cute, I admit, but cute also translates into time-consuming, messy, and expensive (I happen to be short on time at the moment, have enough messes, and don't care to pay for paper sticks).

Did I mention that Andrew declared he wanted an ice cream cake?  What to do?

While talking it over with several creative friends and relations, I realized everything could be combined, sized accordingly, and voila - all problems solved.

 

I packed the bottom of an 8" springform pan with a 1.5 qt. tub of vanilla ice cream.

Next, I crushed some Oreos and sprinkled them on top of the ice cream then swirled some hot fudge on top (plus a little more to be on the safe side).  This was frozen for about 30 minutes before putting more ice cream on top.

When I was ready to assemble the cake, I removed the springform and inverted the cake onto a cutting board and trimmed the circle into a rounded square; the scraps were used to make the top.

I tinted Cool Whip to use as icing and it was perfect: easy to spread and it's not too hard when frozen.  A quick batch of Homemade Magic Shell was perfect for creating the facial features.

With a frame of Duplo sized blocks, it was complete,

like a wink and a smile.

A smaller cake version appeared for Andrew's class.

I just can't sem to get this shape out of my head.