Optimus Prime Cake

A few months after his 6th birthday party last year, my little man had already decided that he wanted a Transformers birthday this year! He even sketched up a 5-tier cake! I had to tell him that I wasn't baking him 5-tier cake unless it was his wedding day. Haha. Strangely enough, this year's birthday for him was a last minute, thrown together thing, on my part. Usually I plan many months in advance and book everyone's time early so they can make it for the party. This year, I left things 'til way last minute, maybe because I was preoccupied doing desserts for two other first birthday celebrations... 

Optimus Prime Cake

Thank goodness his friends were still able to come to the party, which ended up being beach & BBQ at the chalet we were staycationing in. So after making sure all the desserts were good to go for the Little Mermaid dessert table, I rushed back home to bake my little guy a last minute birthday cake, for his party the next day! 

naked rainbow cake

To make things more "fun" I baked him a 5 layer vanilla rainbow cake, filled with fresh whipped cream and a different fruit for every layer: blueberries, kiwis, lychees & raspberries (I know, I could've just gone the easier route and made a big chocolate cake, but you know me...)

blueberries for blue

kiwis for green

lychees for yellow

raspberries for red

And again, I was contemplating just making a single tier cake, with a simple Autobots fondant logo on it. But then again, how could I not make his all time fave, Optimus Prime?? So, I ended up baking a chocolate sponge cake for the 2nd tier, filled with whipped dark chocolate ganache. 

Optimus' head

The cake was straightforward to decorate. I handout most of the decorations with a knife, making sure to keep the symmetry in the design. I made Optimus' helmet attachments out of gumpaste because I needed them to dry in a hurry, and gumpaste dries much quicker than fondant. 

closer look at the bottom tier

And even using gumpaste, the helmet attachments didn't fully dry by the time I had to drive back to the chalet in time for the Little Mermaid party. I decided to place the whole cake in the fridge at the chalet to chill out. Usually this also hardens the fondant and gumpaste after a few hours, which is what I wanted to happen. But that was a disaster because the guests kept opening the fridge to get drinks, causing a lot humidity to enter the fridge and soften the gumpaste!! I didn't realize this until four hours later, when I opened the fridge and saw everything flopping over!! So I quickly moved Optimus into a cold air-conditioned room, and had to prop up the helmet attachments using kitchen paper towels. Thankfully, the next day, they had fully re-hardened, in time for the party!

My son was very excited to see his Optimus Prime cake!! All the effort is worth it just seeing the huge happy smile on his face. (And of course, all his exclamations of "mama, I love you so much!" just add to the happiness) 

team effort to blow out the candles

When it was time to sing happy birthday and blow out the candles, his friends crowded around the cake, were mesmerised by the no. 7 sparkler, and then in a combined team effort, they managed to blow out all seven candles! Can't believe my little boy is already 7 years old!!

Happy 7th Birthday, Domi!

It was nice to see the surprised look on the kids' faces when they saw all the rainbow colours inside of the Optimus cake!  We lucked out and scored sweet blueberries and kiwis (it's always a toss up when using fresh fruits), which paired really well with the vanilla rainbow cake and fresh cream. 

Inside Optimus' "body": rainbow cake layers!

a slice of rainbow cake with rainbow fruits!

We brought Optimus' head back home cuz there was more than enough rainbow cake to go around. And we didn't eat him (sounds so wrong, I know) until four days later, for dessert on my son's actual birthday. The chocolate sponge was still nice and moist. Happy 7th Birthday, big boy Dominic!

A slice of Optimus' head: chocolate!