It’s December and that means my grand-daughter’s seventh birthday is fast approaching!
She is going to have a skating party at the local ice rink. She has requested a cake with ice skates. But when I ask about the plates and napkins (I always like to have the cake coordinate with the paper goods), I hear that she has picked out plates with dogs on them. Ice skates and dogs… this will be interesting!
Cereal treat ice skates with pink fondant laces.
First a 14″ round chocolate layer cake. That’s big enough for the size of the party.
The kids love cereal treats, so I plan on making the ice skates from treats and covering them in white fondant with pink laces. By now I’ve made enough things using cereal treats that I wasn’t nervous about the skates. The blades would have to be made well ahead, so they could dry. Still not sure where they we going to go on the cake, but I’ll figure that out later. Skating…check.
For a the dog aspect, I had a vision. My son has an English bulldog named, Sancho. What if I make Sancho a part of the cake, my granddaughter will love that. I’ll put him on ice skates, maybe spread-eagle on the ice. I’ll need photos of Sancho lying down. Dogs… check.
Sancho, the skating dog!
So far I’m envisioning; a round cake with white fondant, a “frozen” pond of some sort, and for some texture, snowflakes around the side. Now how to go about all this.
For the frozen pond; I started thinking back to other things I’ve done in the past. I remembered that years ago I used to make suckers to sell at a Christmas boutique. Seemed like a lot of work for this project though. Not really in the making of them, but in hunting up the recipe and assorted  items needed. So I came up with an alternative. Why couldn’t I just melt some blue Jolly Ranchers and pour them out on the marble to cool? I went ahead and bought some; tried it and you know what? It works!
Next, I went to the store and bought a mold that had different sizes of snowflakes in it. I wanted a real winter feel to this cake; so I decided to use white Candy Melts to make the snowflake detail.
December ice skating birthday party needed snowflakes and poinsettias.
The day before the party I had the skates, dog, snowflakes, and flowers finished. I was getting a better picture of this cake in my head, but I needed some height. Flowers would be good… winter white poinsettias!
Party day is here and now it’s time to assemble the cake. Covering the cake with white fondant is nice; I can now see how things will work together. I melted the blue Jolly Ranchers in the microwave and poured out the candy into a heart shape, that would fit on the top of the cake. It cools in about a half hour. Just remember to grease the marble real good, so you can get it off without breaking!
Candy snowflake detail on side of cake.
Once I had the pond on the cake, I could build up the snow around the edges. I piped white frosting over the edges and sprinkled that with decorative sugar crystals to make sparkly snow. Next, I stuck the candy snowflakes around the side of the cake with melted white Candy Melts. I added little spots and little snowflakes of white frosting to the top  and sides of the cake. The same snow treatment that was around the pond went around the bottom of the cake.
I placed the dog on the bottom of the heart. I wanted my granddaughters name to look like the dog scratched it into the ice; but all I could think to do that would last was to write it in frosting.
I brushed sparkle dust on the flowers and placed them on the cake. I thought that the skates needed to shimmer too. The shimmer along with the sugar crystals really made the cake shine. I love white on white decorating!
Requirements were ice skating and dogs…
Now to pack up the cake and a first aid kit for cake decorating and get to the party!
Wow… I’d forgotten how cold it can get in those ice rinks! (Remember, I live in California). After setting the cake up in the party room; I went to watch the girls and my son ice skate.
Birthday pizza was followed by the ice skating/dog birthday cake. The birthday girl was surprised by her dog on the cake and absolutely loved the Jolly Rancher pond!
The chocolate cake was yummy too! All in all a great day!!!
