He Gets That from Me: Pictures of This Year's Star Wars Cake

It must be Star Wars week here at Belle of the Blog, because today I'm going to share with y'all some more tips for a Star Wars birthday party so you can create the party of his dreams for that special six to 10-year old boy in your life. For the record, this was my third Star Wars birthday party, so it's getting to be old hat for me. In fact, this year, I was feeling so confident about it, that we decided to wing it as far as games and activities are concerned. At seven and eight, I kind of felt like the kids are old enough just to entertain themselves without the need for a lot of games or activities. So, until the pizza arrived, the boys and one girl, entertained themselves playing with Brendan's extensive collection of Star Wars action figures and Legos.

The star of this year's party, other than my adorable birthday boy of course, was definitely the cake. Brendan has decided that he likes my cakes better than any bakery's (yay!), but this year that meant tackling a challenging theme: Hoth. For those of you who don't remember (or whose children aren't obsessed with the great sci-fi trilogy), Hoth is the ice planet in The Empire Strikes Back. When Brendan first told me he wanted a Hoth cake, I was hopeful that it would be easy. It's a planet covered in snow! I could ice it with white frosting and stick a Lego set  that we already had on top. I'm no professional decorator. I dabble. I play at cake decorating. I have fun with it. But I don't know what the heck I'm doing.

Nope. Brendan didn't want me to use his Lego set. He wanted something else. But he didn't know what exactly. So, after much careful consideration and thought about what I was capable of, I decided to recreate the scene where Han Solo's Tauntaun dies and he... uses it... to save Luke Skywalker. I actually combined it with this backdrop:

I know. I know. Star Wars purists will be offended, but I wanted it to be obvious we were on Hoth and it was getting complicated.

So, how did the cake turn out? Well, what do you think? I know it's not totally perfect, but for my first time working with gum paste, well, let's just say, it could have turned out much worse.

In case, you can't tell, Han is actually an action figure, not gum paste. The towers and the tauntaun are gum paste that I dyed (in the case of the large beast) using gel based food coloring. For the record, gum paste, at least the kind I used, tastes like sweetened sweat socks.

But, it's great for making 3-D figures on a cake. I guess fondant might work, but I've never tried to work with it and this was pretty easy.

The kids loved it but the Yoda Soda was a bit less of a hit than it was in first grade. Different kids, different tastes.

I'm hoping next year I get to branch out and try something else. Although, I do have this crazy aspiration to make a Death Star cake.