Notes

Did I Mention that the Boys are 12?

In the game of computers Minecraft, players can craft a cake if they have a table for crafting and the proper ingredients. To create my son's Minecraft birthday cake we needed a craft table. We built ours by gluing electrical tape to a flat wood cutting board.



I created my favorite cake recipe using two square cake pans.



I only iced the top of the cake and not the sides. Then I added the next layer to the cake and covered the sides and the top of it to ensure that the fondant would stay. Take a look at the image below to see me "crafting cakes' on the 'crafting table'-- where virtual reality transforms into a geeky reality!



I added uncolored fondant to the top layer, and used kitchen scissors to cut the edges. I tried pre-cutting the sides and then lining up the fondant but it was easier to simply place the fondant on top of the fondant and shape it. I added some red dye to leftover fondant, and then added the squares. It was much easier for the fondant to stick to the white fondant after I soaked each square.



SNACKS



We had planned to drink watermelon, but once we embraced our Minecraft-like mindset, we began to see Creepers everywhere and pixelation everywhere.



(That is an Creeper face, if you can't tell!) My son sketched the face for me. I etched into the melon's rind using the help of a knife. We made balls of melon to fill the rind and the boys loved saying they were eating Creeper brains. (Did I mention that the boys are 12? You could discern?



Another snack was also used as a game to play for the event Digging for Diamonds! Starting a few days before the event, we put plastic 'diamonds' in the bottom of several plastic cups. Each day we added different colored juice or soda. Each boy was given a cup with several layers of ice at the time of the birthday celebration. In the game Minecraft one way to gather resources is to dig. Mine-craft is the name they gave it.



We held a competition to determine who could mine the diamonds the fastest.
Minecraft games


CUPPCAKES



After the kids' birthday party, we had our guests' families join ours for dinner and even more fun. I made cupcakes or "cut cakes" for the "after-party party". When I started Googling "Minecraft party", I was inspired by the Creeper-face cupcakes I found on many blogs and Pinterest.



A good friend who would be at our party has food dye intolerance, so we tried to make sure he'd be able to enjoy the food at the party just like everyone else. The sodas and juices we used for the Digging for Diamonds snacks used natural coloring and the Minecraft cake was a little less than small amounts of red dye that were simple to clean. The Creeper cakes were more of a challenge.



Thanks to the internet, however, I found my new best friend avocado frosting!



Although it sounds like a smack, it was the hottest item at the party. The avocado icing isn't like avocados or even guacamole. It tastes more like avocados and garlic and that's why it's so well-known! The avocado's fat content makes it a great substitute for butter and the green color is unbeatable! It stayed bright green throughout the day too.



Alton Brown was the inspiration for the recipe. However, after looking at many variations online and experimenting the week before, I discovered that adding vanilla, lowering the lemon juice, and halving avocado gave the best results.



My Creeper cakes aren't the prettiest things in the world (if you're looking to make them, try Candy Bar Cupcakes' method--they are stunning!) but they were quick to make and our guests ate the entire batch.



I made my favorite chocolate cake mix and baked it in a glass baking dish. When cool, I cut into equal squares, iced them using the avocado icing, and decorated with the chocolate icing left over from the Minecraft cake. I used a plastic yogurt lid as my template and spread the icing using a spreader. The green icing had to sit for a while before adding the chocolate icing.


My Website: https://83hh.com/