You Say It's Your Birthday....

...it's Chi's birthday too.

:) Couldn't help myself.

Chi turned four earlier this week. On Pinterest I saw an adorable Milk & Cookies Bar and I wanted to do it, but I had two obstacles: we weren't really inviting a large group of people (we don't live near our families), and Chi doesn't like cookies. I know, weird.

Chi does love pink milk and he only gets it every now and then as a special treat. So, I grabbed a set of Starbucks Frappaccino bottles and cleaned them. And then I filled them with pink milk (which is strawberry flavored), chocolate milk, and white milk. Then when it was time for cake, everyone could pick their own milk.

I love the old-school milk bottle look. It was a hit.

For the cake, Chi wanted a Robin cake. Not Batman, just Robin. Oh, I should mention that Chi also doesn't really eat cake. He just likes the frosting. He makes my life challenging. :) So, I finally settled on a traditional round cake which I would turn into Robin's face.

Oh, I usually just start with a box mix and store bought frosting. I've done it all from scratch before, but I haven't found the flavor to be so much better to make it worth it, except for angel food cake.

Since Chi wasn't going to actually eat the cake, I wanted a little more to it, so I made a filling for between the layers.

I blended a container of Cool Whip, half a package of vanilla instant pudding and about six chopped up Reese's peanut butter cups. When that was all mixed up, I spread it on the bottom round and stacked the second cake round on top.

To the batcave um, frosting...

Now, if you want bold color, especially red, you have to buy the concentrated food colorings from companies like Wilton. I pick mine up at Michael's and they are a couple dollars each.

Use wax paper around the bottom while you work, when done, pull off and the stand is still clean.

I made the sides red because I was going for an abstract look related to Robin's costume. Once, I was done with the red, I took a dab of the red frosting and added it to more white frosting and a few drops of regular yellow food coloring until I had that peachy, comic book skin color. I just frosted the top with the peach.

Using a toothpick, and my son's little Robin figure as a guide, I drew Robin's hairline, mask and eyes and mouth into the frosting. If I had messed up, I could have smoothed the frosting and tried again.

To do the various details, I used a piping bag and different tips, mostly just a round tip. First I would outline the shape, then fill in and if need be, go back with a knife and smooth out the frosting. I used chocolate frosting for the hair and mask, but I could have used the same Wilton food coloring in black if I had wanted it truly black.

I find it weird that Robin just has white eyes, but that's how he is in the comic book type version, so that's what I did.

I don't have proper tools to make the frosting super smooth, but I just decided not not worry about it.

I used the Wilton color in Moss Green, and just regular yellow food coloring for the "R" insignia.

Chi was pretty happy with his Robin cake. (What a relief!)

And the milk bottles were a big hit too.

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