80s Cake, Cupcakes, Cookies, Cake Pops & Oreos

The bakes for this 80's-themed party has been one of the most challenging so far. I'm an 80's baby, so when people ask me what things I associate with that time period, I go back to my childhood and remember old-school cartoons like The Flintstones and Popeye, Nintendo games, TV shows like the A-team and Knight Rider and of course, Pacman. How are all these things going to be translated into desserts!!? This is gonna be a long post, so kick back, relax, and thanks for reading.

80's-themed dessert table

To start things off, I baked a couple dozen cupcakes: red velvet and rainbow vanilla, and frosted them with cream cheese and vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream, respectively. I didn't use actual cream cheese for the frosting because I didn't know how long these guys would be out of refrigeration for. Didn't want to mess with 30C weather and dairy products. I used Lorann Cream Cheese Bakery Emulsion flavouring instead. It's my first time using this stuff. It tastes alright, but to me, tastes a little artificial. The real thing is miles better. 

rainbow cupcakes with vanilla frosting

red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

To top these cupcakes off, I put together images of some 80s shows favourites and got them printed on edible paper - the A-team, Ghostbusters, Knight Rider. Yup! The edible images are printed on thick wafer paper. They're pretty easy to handle and cuts just like real paper, so it was a breeze cutting the circles out. 

what was your fave 80s show?

I placed the images directly on the buttercream. In hindsight, had I known that this party was going to be held outdoors, I would've put the images on the back of Oreos or something, to prevent them from losing shape. After a few hours displayed outdoors, the edible images absorbed the moisture from the buttercream and didn't stand up anymore.

80's cupcakes topped with edible images

For the cake pops, I went with Super Mario Bros.! I was really excited to make these cake pops. Super Mario Bros. was my all-time favourite Nintendo game back then. It's the reason why I wear glasses, according to my mother, since I spent every day after school with my eyes glued to the TV, Nintendo controller in hand. I'm one of those funny people that move their whole body in order to make the character on-screen, jump... Haaa!

shape the cake pop dough

The cake pops are strawberry cake, crumbled and swirled with vanilla Swiss meringue buttercream. Normally, I just roll the cake pops into balls, but for these guys, I made special shapes. Once you get the cake pop "dough" the right consistency, you can pretty much make any shape you want! For the mushroom, I made a small cylinder and flattened half-sphere. Mario was just the regular round ball. Luigi and Princess Toadstool were oval with a sharpened "chin", and for the Super star, I crammed the cake pop dough into a star-shaped cookie cutter and gently pushed the star shape out. All these characters might be different shapes, but my trick to get them the same size to weigh out portions of the dough before shaping them. I then popped all these guys into the freezer overnight before finishing the decorations. Do check out my cake pops basics page here for some cake pop-making tips. 

left: dipped once in chocolate; right: un-dipped cake pop

To finish of decorating these cake pops, I melted white chocolate and dyed batches different colours using coloured candy oil and powdered food colouring. I always double dip my cake pops in melted chocolate because the first coating is too thin and the cake shows through, as you can see in the pic above. Wait until the first coating has fully dried before dipping again.

Mario Bros. Cake Pops

(On a side note, do you like the home-made cake pop stand? Click here to learn how you can make one yourself!)

For Mario, Luigi and the Princess, I used mini m&m's for their noses and ears (mini m&m cut in half), stuck on using some melted chocolate. After the double coating of peach-coloured chocolate, I drew on their faces and hair using some melted chocolate and a toothpick. I piped on melted chocolate for their hair and moustaches, with a small round piping tip. 

"It's a-me, Mario!"

Mario and Luigi's hats and the Princess' crown are made out of fondant. I used an edible ink food marker to draw the M and L or Mario and Luigi's hats. The little jewels on the Princess' crown are confetti sprinkles. 

Princess Toadstool

Happy moustache on Luigi

Making the Power mushroom is a 2-part dipping effort. First, push the cylinder-shaped cake ball 1/4 of the way down the stick and dip it in the peach-coloured white chocolate. Then, stick the mushroom cap on with a little melted chocolate. Carefully dip just the mushroom cap part into red-coloured melted chocolate. Once everything is dry, dot on the eyes and cut out white fondant circles for the white dots on the cap and attach them on with a little bit of water or melted chocolate. Cute little mushroom!

super cute Power mushroom cake pop

The cookie pops were pretty much as complicated to make as the Applejack pony cookies. Each cookie was hand-cut out of cookie dough, since it's pretty tough to find Flintstone, Gummi Bear, Mask and Popeye cookie cutters! 

cookie pops

The cookies are decorated with fondant. Each colour was rolled out of fondant and hand-cut using an Xacto knife and then pieced together, using a little water to attach them together. Even the super tiny details like Sunni Gummi's nose, Wilma Flintstone's lips and Popeye's pipe were all hand cut out of fondant! Talk about meticulous, detailed work! 

80's cartoons, on a stick!

To make the characters on these cookie pops look more of their cartooned selves, I outlined them using a black edible ink marker. This really made them pop! I love how these cookies turned out. 

Pacman chocolate-covered Oreos

The Pacman chocolate-covered Oreos were relatively simple to make. The Oreos were covered with white chocolate dyed yellow, using a 6-cavity plain circles mould. The chocolate only needs to be refrigerated for 10 mins before the chocolate has set and can easily be released from the mould. To make Pacman's gaping mouth, I cut large circles out of black fondant, and then cut those into six pieces. I dotted on the eyes using a toothpick using some melted black chocolate. 

"waka waka waka"

At first, I did try to cut out Pacaman's mouth area, like in this YouTube video, but I didn't manage to do it without cracking the chocolate! These guys will just have to do. 

And finally, the cake. I got to make a cassette drawer cake, with a boom box sitting on top of it! The cake is six layers of Devil's Food Cake, filled with whipped dark chocolate ganache. This was a pretty massive cake! 

rich whipped dark chocolate ganache filling

To decorate the cake, I cut out panels of dark chocolate fondant, marbled with white fondant to look like wood. I let the panels dry a bit before placing them on the cake. The cassettes on the cake is an edible printed sheet, cut to the right size and placed directly on top of the buttercream. 

spot any of your favourite bands?

Since the cassette drawer was already more than enough cake for all the guests, I made the boom box topper out of a styrofoam block covered in fondant. I added black fondant details like the speakers and the radio buttons, attaching them on with a bit of water. 

details on the boom box

The handle of the boom box was cut out of black fondant and allowed to fully dry before it was attached to the cake with some royal icing. 

cassette drawer & boom box cake

All these desserts were put together on a nostalgic 80's-themed dessert table, styled by a bunch of friends throwing a party for another bunch of friends!! They did a really great job, with the table offering some old-school snacks like cuttlefish "satay" sticks and Ovaltine biscuits, and little paper cutouts of cassette tapes and Rubik's cubes! Happy Birthday, July & August babies!

80's-themed dessert table!