Rah-rah-rah for Rocket!
My twins are huge fans of the Little Einsteins. For their fourth birthday, my daughter requested a princess cake and my son requested a strawberry flavored rocket cake. After a little bit of investigating, I came up with a plan.
FIRST … The best way to approach this cake is with three layers. The birthday was Sunday, I started the cake baking Friday night. Friday night I prepared a boxed french vanilla cake mix and filled 12 cupcake tins and a 1 1/2 qt pyrex bowl. Did you even know that you could cook a cake in a pyrex bowl? Works like a charm. I sprayed cooking spray in the bowl and lightly floured it. I followed the cooking instructions on the box for a bundt pan. It took about 30 minutes at 350.
SECOND … On Saturday, I baked the second cake. Q made a special request for a strawberry cake so I made the next two layers using the strawberry cake recipe listed on the previous post. I made one 9-inch round cake pan and 1 11 x 9 x 2 in rectangular pan. Remove from the pans and let cool completely.
THIRD …
Layer one … rectangle. At Michael’s craft store, I purchased a 4 set of food coloring that had the colors red, blue, and yellow … I am pretty sure I bought the Nascar colors – they had the right combination and they were on clearance! I made a buttercream frosting for the bottom layer and tinted it blue.
Layer two … 9 inch circle. Place in the middle of the rectangle. I bought a Wilton cake icing mix from Michaels and mixed up a large batch of icing. I had no idea how much icing it would make! I reserved a very small amount for the yellow headlights and tinted the rest red. It is very hard to make a decent red – you are going to need a lot of professional food color – do not try to use the stuff at the supermarket. (I should have also reserved some icing to tint blue for the windows. Instead, I tried to use the buttercream for the windows and it really was difficult and did not look quite like I was hoping.) Frost this layer red.
Layer three … Pyrex dome. Place at the back edge of the circle. Frost mostly red. Create windows around the front in blue. Draw two yellow headlights at the front edge of the 9 inch circle.
Rocket boosters … Take two cupcakes and 4 long wooden skewers. Paint tops of cupcakes red and then add blue on top and swirl the blue into the red to create the engine effect. Skewer the cupcakes to the side of the cake – resting the edge of the cupcakes on the bottom layer of red – we used 2 broken skewers per cupcake to secure it to the cake.
Finishing touch … Red lollilop! Unwrap the lollilop. Dip the white stick in red frosting and stick the lollipop into the top of the rocket for the antenna.
ENJOY!!! This cake was a huge hit!
