Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Did you notice the title of this post? Well, if you didn't know, I was singing the theme song in my head when I wrote it. I used to love the Ninja Turtles. I'm talking cartoons, movies, even the new stuff! My absolute favorite was Rafael. I think that's because secretly I wanted to be a rebel.

Well, recently I was asked to make a Michaelangelo cake for a birthday party. So back to my childhood I went.

I wanted to do this cake simple. I sorted through a ton of pictures on Google, then decided on one similar to what you see above. I used a 12x18 cake pan; so, as you can imagine, I needed a pretty large picture to trace. I cropped an image into four quadrants, then enlarged each piece. 

I printed each piece onto a normal sized sheet of paper. Then, I cut the pieces out. 

After my cake cooled, I froze it. Once it was frozen, I removed it from the freezer and leveled it. It's always easier to level and frost a cake when it's frozen. This keeps the crumbs from getting all in the frosting. I then used a knife to cut my design out of the cake. 

After I got the cake the size and shape I wanted it, I crumb-coated it. I did this in white buttercream frosting. If you are new to baking, a crumb-coat basically allows you to make sure your outer coat of frosting will not have loose crumbs in it. 

I let the crumb-coat sit for a few hours to crust over. Then, I actually used my orange first for the bandana. I covered the ends pretty easily, then I frosted a design to make it look like it was covering eyes. Then, I did the green. Since my orange was already there, I was able to carefully outline the bandana and fill in the rest. It wasn't perfectly smooth, but it was close enough.

Next I piped the white for the eyes and black for the pupils and mouth. It wasn't too complex, so frosting the entire cake didn't take very long. That's why I wanted to do a simple cake!

Since the cake was for family, Hubby got to attend the party. He said the cake was a big hit, and I got many texts from attendees that confirmed. The birthday boy was especially excited that it was Michaelangelo. 

It just goes to show that if you follow the K.I.S.S. model, and just Keep It Simple, Stupid, decorating cakes don't have to be a daunting task.

What do you think?