Battle Tank Cake & Dessert Table

The littlest boy that started my cake making hobby is already 10 years old!! How can a decade fly by so fast?!? And not only that, but he also now has a third sibling, a little brother that he wished for on his birthday last year (hopefully his wish is for something else this year, lol)! Said little brother is now already 100 days old! We decided to have a joint party for the two boys since, their celebrations were only a week apart. 

Army Tank Dessert Table

When I asked the big boy what theme he wanted for his party this year, he immediately said TANKS! He is obsessed with World of Tanks game on Xbox, cuz he and his dad play it frequently. And to think he went from Super Mario to Tanks in just a year! Oh man, just wait til he turns 18 and has to do National Service :|

definitely need lots of camouflage!

Since it was our first party since coming back after having been gone for a year, and because many of our friends haven't even met the baby, and because the big boy was celebrating a milestone birthday, we decided to throw a bigger party to celebrate. I was excited for the party, and made lots of desserts including cupcakes, cake pops, cookies, mini fruit tarts, macarons and a battle tank birthday cake! Hope you're comfortably seated cuz this is going to be a long post. If you'd like to read details of the party, head on over to this post. Thanks for reading!

Domi & Eli's 10th Birthday & baby 100 Days bash

I made ondeh-ondeh cupcakes, which are fragrant pandan cupcakes, filled with gula Melaka (caramelized palm sugar)-coconut, frosted with "camouflage" Swiss meringue buttercream (SMBC) & drizzled with salted gula Melaka caramel. 

green pandan cupcake batter

Not only are they green & brown (which fits the army theme perfectly), but they are also really tasty!

gula-melaka coconut filling

ondeh-ondeh cupcakes, camo-style

The cake pops are devil's food cake, swirled with vanilla SMBC and shaped into ovals on black straws instead of the usual lollipop sticks. After setting them in the freezer, they were dipped into melted white chocolate, tinted army green with a few drops of oil-based green candy colouring & a little melted dark chocolate.

grenade cake pops

Once the chocolate coating had set, I drew lines all around to get the grenade look. Make sure to let the melted chocolate cool and get to a thicker consistency before piping lines so that the chocolate doesn't run everywhere! I added a small black fondant circle to the top and a grey fondant ring beside that as the finishing touches to the grenade. 

fire in the hole!

For the cookies, since it was double celebration, I made some to celebrate the birthday boy, and some to celebrate baby's 100 days. 

naked cookies, all set to decorate

For the birthday cookies, I designed a "4-star general" logo with digital cams for the backdrop, and printed those as edible icing images, attaching them onto sugar cookies with a smear of royal icing on the back, and a royal icing border, piped using a small star tip. 

army cookies, work in progress

The consistency I used for the border was thicker, so that the the star tip design can be seen. I also hand-cut tanks out of cookie dough, using a printed image as a stencil since I don't have a tank-shaped cookie cutter, and decorated those in a camo design. 

tank cookies & edible image "4-star general" cookies

For the baby cookie set, I made bibs, rattles, onsies and baby bottles. I got the camo effect by piping different colours of royal icing using the wet-on-wet technique. Once the surface of the base had dried matte, I went back with orange royal icing and piped on words and letters, free-handing them to look like "Army font". 

baby shower army cookies set

I really love the glossy sheen that this set of cookies dried with! I didn't really do anything differently with the recipe or technique, so I'm not sure how that happened!

camo baby bib cookies

Anyway, next up are the fruit tarts. Since my go-to for fruit tarts wasn't able to help this time (the baker is nursing a back injury!), I had to make them myself, which is a pain in the butt cuz making tart shells is tedious! The dough is super soft and sticky in this climate, and I had a hard time shaping them by hand in the tart moulds.

mini fruit tart shells after baking

I lightly coated the tart shells are lightly coated with dark chocolate, to keep them from going soggy after filling. The tarts are filled with vanilla custard and topped with fresh blueberries and kiwi slices. 

filling those mini fruit tarts

I probably should've used some mango as well, since that is also in line with the theme colours, but there weren't any ripe ones available at the supermarket. I brushed the fruit with glaze to keep them fresh with shiny appeal. 

blueberry & kiwi mini fruit tarts

Since baby was turning 100 days and not actually celebrating a birthday, I didn't want to make a cake for him. So instead, I made a macaron tower! I printed out tanks and baby's memoji and used that as a guide to pipe the macaron batter. 

all set to pipe macarons

I use Italian method when making character macarons because I find that the batter doesn't deflate as quickly as with the French method. 

waiting for the piped macarons to "dry" before baking

The details (eyes and tongue) on the memoji baby face macarons were painted on with Poppy Paints once the macarons had been baked and cooled. I used a fine black edible ink marker to outline the eyes and for the eyebrows, and also to write "100 days" on one of the macarons.

Eli's memoji, in macaron form!

I also made camouflage macarons by using the camo colours and randomly piping them to form a circle. The macarons are filled with a simple dark chocolate ganache which sets firmly and holds up really well in this hot and humid climate. 

dark chocolate ganache macaron filling

To make the "cone" I cut a paper party hat down to the size I wanted! I couldn't find a styrofoam cone at the craft store, so I had to improvise! I mean could've made the cone out of cake, like with this macaron tower, but I figured we already had more than enough desserts and I didn't want too much leftover! 

army tank macarons

check out the dainty feet

I coated the paper cone with green tea white chocolate ganache, which was the perfect shade of army green. I had initially wanted to use this as the filling for the macarons, but I made the mistake of adding too much green tea powder to the white chocolate, which made it a bit too bitter. At least it didn't go to waste!

army macaron tower

To assemble the macaron tower, I piped a small dollop of green tea white choc ganache behind each macaron and then stuck them to the tower. I really love how the macaron tower turned out, cuz I really didn't plan on how it would look assembled when I was making the macaron pieces! Luckily I had enough macarons to cover the tower. Ha!

baby's 100 days army macaron tower

The last thing I made for the dessert table was the birthday cake, which had to be a 3D battle tank, of course! The cake is the crowd-pleasing devil's food cake, filled with whipped dark chocolate ganache and crumb-coated with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. I baked up two sheet pans, and then carved the cake into the tank shape. There were enough leftover scraps to form a 6" square cake on the side!

whipped dark chocolate ganache filling

To get the fondant this shade of army green, I used drops of Wilton moss green and Americolour leaf green, mixed into commercial bright green fondant. I really had fun adding all the details on the tank, from the hatches, tank tracks and ammo box, to the sprocket wheels. Yes, say it again. Sprocket wheels! Lol. 

sprocket wheel!

My hubby happens to be quite the expert on tank anatomy, and he insisted that I get at least the basic details right. He was like, where's the driver gonna sit? You have to have a hatch for the driver! Haha.

the tank's main gun

The tank's main gun is a bubble tea straw, wrapped in a strip of fondant. I threaded it through a long chopstick to attach it onto the cake. I wrote the birthday boy's name on the gun barrel with an edible marker (the army guys usually spray paint on a cool name for the tank, like Fury or something), and then added a white no. 10 on a black panel, like is done with the real tanks here!

rollin' through the edible dirt

To finish off the look, I coated the cake board in dark chocolate ganache (leftover from the macaron filling!), and then crumbled black chocolate biscuits (aka Oreos without the white stuff) to look like dirt all over. I dusted the tank with a bit of cocoa powder too so it looks battle-worn. 

tank cake, ready for battle!

All these army tank themed desserts went on this fabulously styled dessert table, put together by All Mommy Wants. I had previously engaged them for family friend's 50th birthday/army retirement party last year, and was excited to see how they could present this similar theme with a new spin. And, as usual, All Mommy Wants delivered beyond expectations! 

Army Dessert Table, Goode Bags Table, Ball Pit & Bouncy Castle

Army Dessert Table

bird's eye view of all our desserts & cake!

view from the right side

The cake pops were displayed in cool "ammunition boxes." (and these were the first items to go! So popular with kids and adults alike!) The cookies were displayed on a plank of edible sand, and some were in actual army mess tins! 

Grenade cake pops

army cookies on edible "sand"

army mess tin display from cookies

There was lots of personalisation done as well, with the boys names even appearing on the small toy tanks, and on the collar of baby's fave stuffed toy! The toy soldiers were meticulously arranged, and real army equipment, like water canteens, field pack and even an actual helmet were used as props!

hi cutie!

I love that the camo netting was extended in front of the table, too, with a small shelf display featuring some of the kids' favourite toys, like the foam gun, Singa in camo and our souvenir Bundeswher bear! 

Singa, in camo!

The icing on the cake, so to speak, was the revolving cake stand, which gave us a 360-degree view of the tank cake. Check out the video here! 

birthday boy and his baby bro

Our guests were wowed by the set up as soon as they walked into the venue, and everyone devoured the desserts! I am so glad that everything was well-received and that our family and friends enjoyed themselves at the double celebrations! 

which would you grab first?

frosted army cupakes

a bite of ondeh-ondeh cupcake!

The big boy especially loved the part when we lit up his tank cake, cuz the sparklers made it look as if rounds were being fired from the main gun. Check out the video here! 

Light 'er up! One on the way! 

time to cut the cake!

slice of decadent devil's food cake

If you'd like to check out how the rest of the party went, please head on over to this post. Happy 10th birthday to my big boy, Domi, and happy 100 days to cutie baby Eli!! 

desserts were all wiped out!

Happy 100 days baby Eli & happy 10th birthday, Domi!