Friday, May 1, 2009

Tutorial: Lego Birthday Cake

Lego Birthday Cake

Every year, I look forward to making my son's birthday cake. Just to see the huge smile on his face when he sees his cake for the first time....WOW! That does it for me. I've made some pretty awesome cakes, but nothing gives me more pride and joy than the ones I make for him. What can I say? It's a mommy thing :-)

My son LOVES legos, so this year I wanted to make him a cake that looked like a huge lego block. But since I'm pregnant and can't really stay on my feet for too long, I asked my husband to help me out. To make it easier and less stressful, I opted to do a rice krispie lego cake for display and red velvet cupcakes for serving. My husband made the rice krispie cake and I made the cupcakes and decorations. As always, I made some egg-free chocolate cupcakes for my son.

Hubby made two batches of rice krispie treats and firmly packed them into two greased 1/4 sheet cake pans. When the rice krispies treats were set, he unmolded them and pressed the two pieces together. He spread some buttercream frosting on the cake to smooth out any gaps and covered the entire block with red rolled fondant. Not bad for a rookie, eh?

lego cake sides

I used a round cookie cutter and a red food coloring pen to make this lego logo. I waited for the rolled fondant to dry a little before I wrote on it.

Lego logo

I made these little lego decorations for the cupcakes. I cut out squares that were about 1 x 1 inch and used a round piping tip to make the tiny circles. I attached each circle with some lemon extract.
lego toppers


Everybody enjoyed the cupcakes and we also decided to cut the rice krispie lego block and give them to our guests before they left.


Lego Cupcake

Please note: I am not a paid endorser nor did I accept any freebies of the brands or products mentioned in this post. I just love them and wanted to share them with you :-)

39 comments:

andrew said...

OMgosh!! LEGO CAKE!! SUper cute!! hahah =D yum yum!!

Marguerite said...

Happy birthday to your son, how very cute! I also love making cakes for my sons birthdays, last year's ambulance was a big hit and i'm starting to think about what to do this year. I love the idea of the lego cake, but I don't really know how to work with fondant and doing it all in buttercream seems a bit excessive and potentially way less pretty!

SweetThingsTO said...

Very cute - that's a lot of red! Excellent idea!

Milena said...

Happy birthday to your son! The cake and the cupcakes are just perfect! Wonderful job!

oneordinaryday said...

Absolutely adorable!

Joanne Choi said...

totally awesome and cute!

Makey-Cakey said...

This is amazing! Lego was my all time favourite childhood toy (and it is still one of my husband's favourite current toys!) And cakes and baking are now one of my favourite pastimes - such a good idea. I feel a future cake experimentation session coming on...

Rindy R said...

Adorable - I have a nephew that would LOVE this cake! Thanks for posting such a great birthday idea!

Carrie owner of Bella Cupcake Couture said...

OMG My husband LOVED lego growing up. This would be so cute to make. Thanks for the great tips!

Sophie said...

This would put a smile on anyone's cake - yay for Legos; what fun cupcakes :).

Vee said...

great idea

Anonymous said...

wow that is amazing i wish i had ur skills!!

Carpool Queen said...

How long did it take you to make this? I've got a party coming up next week and I'm tempted, but don't want to be rushed.

Art of Dessert said...

Hi Carpoolqueen! It took two days to make the lego cake (Thursday and Friday), that's because my husband only had a couple of hours at night to work on the cake. The first night, he made two batches of rice krispies treats and pressed them into the two cake pans. He let it set up overnight in the fridge. He also colored the rolled fondant red. The second night, he unmolded the rice krispies and stuck them together with buttercream frosting. He covered the block with fondant and I smoothed it out. I used the remaining red fondant to make the round lego logos.

Jane said...

Incredible cake!!

Rumela said...

This birthday Cake looks so beautiful with the colors, I'm sure it'll be a big hit with the kids! Nice colors! Although I'm to a big fan of cupcakes, this sure looks yummy! I'm normally the one that will say no to cupcakes.thank you for shearing your post.

Anonymous said...

Great cake and cupcakes! How long did it take for you to make the Lego portion on the cupcakes? Thanks!

Art of Dessert said...

I'd say about 2 hours. Attaching those teeny tiny circles on top of the blocks was time-consuming but well worth it.

emily noodle said...

i absolutely LOVE this!!! I work at a lego store and i'd love to make the cupcakes for our monthly potlucks. what did you use to make the little legos?

Anonymous said...

Do you make your own fondant or purchase it?

Art of Dessert said...

Emily, I used the same rolled fondant that I used for the big lego cake to make the little lego decorations for the cupcakes.

Anonymous, I bought the rolled fondant (Wilton brand) and then used food coloring to dye it red and blue. I like coloring my own fondant because I can adjust the color, but you can buy red and blue rolled fondant. You can find Satin Ice red and blue fondant in 2 lb. containers on Amazon.

Anonymous said...

This is so adorable! I wish I could make this! This is a great idea

Makeup By Alma said...

Wow what a great cake!!! I would love to make one for my son he loves Lego's!!! Is there any way I can make one without Fondant?

Art of Dessert said...

Hi Alma! You can use regular buttercream frosting to cover the cake. For the Lego circles on top, you can make a small batch of rice krispie treats and use a round cookie cutter.

Sarah said...

love the legos! shared on my blog thursday
http://simplyfunstuff.blogspot.com/

Art of Dessert said...

Awesome blog! Thanks for sharing Sarah :-)

Becky said...

Hi! LOVE the work you do - everything is just gorgeous!! :-) Where do you get the cake boards you use? They appear to be plastic rather than cardboard like most and they just LOOK stronger!

Art of Dessert said...

Thanks Becky! They're Tuffboard cake boards. Yes, they're sturdier and they look nice too! I order them online.

http://www.tuffboardcakeboards.com/

Anonymous said...

Hi
I love your idea. it looks great.
can u please explain how u did the little legos for the cupcake.
so they are all made out of fondant?
u just cut 1 inch squares from fondant? how did u manage to make them so smooth and even?
also for the tiny circles, which round piping tip did u use? how did u manage to get the fondant out of the tip?
thanks a lot

Korie Powell said...

I L-O-V-E this! Do you know about how much fondant it took to cover the cake?

Anonymous said...

Have you ever been to LegoLand in Carlsbad Ca? They have a Lego-man shaped cake pan. It's cute. I bought one for only $5 this year.

I love your creativity with this cake, and I really enjoy all your designs.

Anonymous said...

Hi Rianne
Thank you for sharing your journey with your son's allergies. My son has allergies too to dairy, egg, banana, fish, lentils, peas and nuts. I have just started to bake again, he is three and I have started hitting the vegan recipe sites for ideas for cakes, muffins and all sorts of things. What age was your son when he out grew his dairy and wheat allergy? My son is just about to turn three and is still highly allergic to dairy and egg. Fingers crossed this will change. Have you got any good egg and dairy free birthday cake recipes? thanks again

Art of Dessert said...

Hi,
My son outgrew his wheat and dairy by three years old. I was hoping he would outgrow his egg allergy by the time he turn five but it didn't happen so we'll just have to keep doing what we're doing and hopefully he'll outgrow it someday :-)
Here's a couple of birthday cake suggestions. Hope it helps.

egg-free chocolate cake:
http://artofdessert.blogspot.com/2008/10/one-good-chocolate-cake.html

applesauce cupcakes:
http://artofdessert.blogspot.com/2008/09/dealing-with-food-allergies.html

Anonymous said...

Hi! First off I wanted to say that this cake looks stunning as well as the cupcakes. Everything here on this blog is amazing and is so well crafted. Keep up the amazing work and good luck to you on future cakes!!!!!:)

Shannon said...

How do you make the fondant fall with no visible seams? Or how do you smooth the seams? Any advice? Thanks!

Art of Dessert said...

Hi Shannon! I covered the entire cake with one piece of fondant that's why there aren't any seams. I started smoothing the top first then worked on the corners. Here's a link to a really helpful video on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyRy2QX2wKo
The video is set on fast speed so don't worry, you don't have to work that quickly. LOL She just didn't want her demo to take too long to watch. Hope this helps :-)

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the idea. I did this exact cake last week for my step son's 6th birthday and it was a hit. I also made the small lego for his cupcakes. Love your work and your piping on the chocolate cake.

Tammy, Brisbane Australia

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the idea! I just made fondant legos for a 6-year old's birthday cupcakes!

Anonymous said...

What are the lego squares on the cupcakes made out of? The rice krispies as well?

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