birthday cakes & pirates

We were reminiscing some yesterday, as it was son number one's 28th birthday.
While he lived at home, he chose 16 homemade cakes/pies. On one occasion he
chose to order from a bakery. Once when he turned 13, we were on a cross
country road trip and bought a cake and actually shared with the Sate Park
Rangers of Lake Michigan.

One year he requested a cat cake. Yup, I made a decorated cake with
dark gray frosting piped out to look like our cat Thimble. Once he chose the
traditional Mickey Mouse on the top. That year we got him Mickey Mouse
pajamas, too. He wore them outside like clothes sometimes...way before wearing
pajamas in public was cool. He was four.

My favorite was the Spaceship cake. I made the the ships' fins out of tin foil, the after burners out of the pointed ends of ice cream cones with orange and yellow frosting coming out as the flames. I put a picture of him and piped around it to simulate him looking out the window, smiling. Yes indeed MORE gray frosting!

I've piped on bicycles and cats and cookie monster (actually eating one
Oreo with crumbs....I remember thinking it was very expensive to have to
purchase the entire bag of cookies to use one!)

While living in Europe, He requested an ice cream pie. He saw an
advertisement in a magazine someone had sent us. So I had to make the
chocolate chip cookie dough and freeze it. Then make the ice cream and
freeze it. Then stir it together. Then make the pie crust. Put it all together,
freeze it. Then make the hot fudge to "frost" it with. All using a teeny, tiny
top of the refrigerator freezer. If I remember correctly, it was totally worth it.

He got older (dang it) and started requesting the famous "candy bar" cakes.
Home made chocolate or vanilla cake with usually vanilla frosting with all different
kinds of candy bars chopped up roughly and covering the entire top of the cake.

Oh, then the Oreo cakes...that held a couple of years of popularity between
both boys. Some recipe I found and sent away for (pre-computer days) that
was vanilla cake with crushed Oreos in the batter. It was topped with vanilla
butter crème icing with yup, you guessed it more chopped Oreos.


Then there was/is the pie phase. He LOVES pie. I was at a loss on how to
"dress up" a plain old Blackberry pie. Then inspiration hit. I bought five black
plastic rats about 5", each with beady red eyes. I stuck them in the finished pie
all around the top crust, coming out every which way. I didn't say anything.
So there sat the pie on the counter. Everyone thought I had lost my mind. He finally asked okay, what's with the pie?
I said.....wait for it............... you mean the PIE RATS! Haha...get it pirates?

Oh, mom's can be so silly in showing how much they love their kids.

Next family birthday is in about 2 weeks. I've got my thinking cap on......
I am sure inspiration will hit me. ....I have been researching different cheesecake
recipes.

...and so the adventure in baking continues