Today my baby turned 3 years old. He insisted on having a Curious George cake, so that’s what he got (since I aim to please).
Rather than purchase a cake at the store (which doesn’t taste as good anyway), I made his cake using a Buttercream transfer. It’s actually really simple and it can be done ahead of time and placed on the cake right before you serve it.
All you need is a picture (printed in mirror image) from a coloring book or printed from online (I found mine on PBS Kids), a piece of glass, some chocolate, some frosting, and some decorator bags/tips.
Here are some other birthday cakes I’ve made over the years and here’s a link to a post with my buttercream frosting recipe.
Additional resources for homemade birthday cakes:
- Coolest Birthday Cakes
- Wiltons’ site – thanks Sabrina
Do you make your own cakes? How do you come up with ideas to decorate them? For more frugal ideas, please visit Life As Mom (who also happens to be great at making cakes).
Corrie is a "cents"able wife and stay-at-home mom of 2 boys.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I do make my own birthday cakes. Generally, I let the kids choose their theme and then I do a combination of brainstorming and web surfing. Last year we did space (made a solar system cake – 8 cakes, frosting on board for sun and a little blob to recognize the former planet) and Wiggles (used a Wilton Car pan, cut off top to make convertible, used the Wiggles from a toy to complete the look). This year, I am trying to come up with Star Wars and Abby Caddaby. My son has requested a lightsaber…might try cupcakes to create the shape. For Abby, might have to see about a plain sheet cake with her image. You can see my cake post from Life As Mom's cake roundup here. http://abusymomoftwo.blogspot.com/2009/01/kids-themed-birthday-cakes.html
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Great job! I make all our cakes too! The kids love picking out what they want me to make them.
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I cheated this year! I bought a Backyardigans image from eBay. I made the cake from scratch, iced it, and added this image. It wasn't too terribly pricy… still less than it would have cost me to buy a decorated cake. And my four-year-old daughter loved it!
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Great job!
I always make our cakes here too, but I've never seen that technique. Cool.
That is some neat work. I should give this a try. thanks!
That looks great, I am making my sons cake for his 1st bday. I did a test run the other day and my problem is the cake didnt turn out as thick as I needed it to so that I could put a border around the top and bottom like you did. Can you tell me how you got your cake so tall? What size pan did you use? Thanks
Thanks Monica! I used a regular 13×9 pan using 1 cake mix. Good luck with the cake!