Elmo

A child's first birthday is a big deal for the parents and my niece's first birthday is no different.  My niece has shown great interest in Elmo and so my sister asked me to make an Elmo cake for her first birthday.

Of coarse I took on the challenge (there is an Elmo pan, how hard could it be?).

A bit closer to the party, the size of the party increased and so I decided I would do an double Elmo cake - yup, two layers of delicious Elmo with yummy buttercream in between!

Even closer to the party, the party size increased again.  Now I didn't feel up to the challenge of a triple layer Elmo cake, so to supplement I decided on Sesame Street cupcakes.  Amazon is a great resource for party supplies and they had Sesame Street rings - perfect for a kid's birthday.  I thought it would be a good idea to make the cupcakes in fun colors!

And of coarse, my sweet niece needed her own Elmo cake in one-year-old size.

1...2...3...My Mommy

My mom does tons and tons for us so when she said she wanted a Count cake, I could not deny her.  Once again, he was a retired pan and let's be clear, I'm not good with free hand anything and don't trust myself with a knife let alone cutting a cake shape.  So back to ebay I went (which has now confirmed my love of ebay when looking for great cake pans).  Once again I had to download the directions which were as old as sesame street itself, but I managed to figure it out ok.  She loved it...at least she said she did.