Peyton's Sheriff Star Cake

When we last left my weekend cake adventure story, I had a tub of experimental frosting in the refrigerator, which I'd decided to use as filling for Peyton's birthday cake. The big hurdle here would be the torte-ing, as I have never cut a 9 x 13 cake in half before. I read that it's easiest to cut cakes when they're cold (or frozen), so I put it in the fridge for a few hours before I was scheduled to decorate. It worked like a charm, and the cake cut with no problem. I used a large bread knife instead of the wire "cake cutter" I purchased when I took the cake class. It turns out that the wire does not cut cake very well at all...it just snags, drags, and makes a big mess.

The theme for this 3rd birthday party event was cowboys/sheriffs. I decided to do a sheriff star, and use the colors red, tan, and yellow. Red is a difficult color to make. You've got to use about a gallon of food coloring and let it sit for several hours to "cure" in order to get a very deep red color. I wish the red had turned out a little deeper for this cake, but it was OK.

I would like to try to start making my cakes fancier as far as the details go. Up until now I've been satisfied with getting the main design looking good, throwing on a border and calling it a day. But when I see cakes that I think are really impressive and pretty, it seems that they have some extra detail that really makes the cake. That's why I did the decorative piping on the side of this cake and the two-colored border. (Well, that and I had a bunch of extra frosting left!)


The filling on this cake turned out very well. It did add two sticks of butter worth of fat content, but it sure was good!