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Ladybug recently had a “Paw Patrol“-themed birthday party. With life the way it is right now, the planning for this birthday party did not really happen until the last minute. Luckily Amazon Prime came to the rescue with the decorations via two-day shipping.
The cake was a whole different issue.
You see, I have grand cake decorating ideas but limited cake decorating skills and even more limited cake decorating patience. Especially right now. So I knew that a homemade Paw Patrol-themed cake was going to be out of the question.
I had snatched up some figurines at the dollar store months ago, when my cake decorating vision was at its grandest. (You can find the complete set on Amazon here.) But the day before Ladybug’s birthday, I found myself cruising the store bakeries for a ready-made birthday cake on which I could just plop these figurines.
Life happens and I needed to save some time.
But I was striking out! The two bakeries in town did not have any cakes that looked birthday-ish and wouldn’t clash with the Paw Patrol figures.
Then I saw it.
A fresh, white cake. The perfect blank canvas. I asked the bakery worker to go ahead and box it up, while The Professor looked at me like I had three heads.
“But Mom, that’s a WEDDING cake!”
But I’ll tell you what…I think I’m going to be buying white wedding cakes from now on. Here’s why:
NO CLASHING – I’m going to let my perfectionism show for a second here. I hate going to all of the trouble of decorating the house for a party and then have the cake totally clash. The blank canvas of the white wedding cake was right up my alley.
NO NEED TO PLAN AHEAD – Most bakeries will have some sort of all-white wedding cake on display. In our case, the rosettes were a little fancy for Paw Patrol, but I could live with it. Plus, I didn’t have to wait for them to write anything on the cake. Just grab and go.
NO BAKING – Enough said. Yes, I know homemade tastes better. But when you’re in a pinch, some cake is better than no cake.
The day of the party, I pulled the cake out of the fridge, plopped some icing dots on the sides and set the figurines on top. Five minutes later and I was done. Ladybug squealed with delight when she saw her cake and I was glad I didn’t spend hours on a cake that would fail to live up to my grand vision. Pinterest won’t go crazy over this cake, but my two year-old was thrilled.
Re-purposed wedding cake, you’re my new best friend.
If you’re pressed for time or (like me) your cake decorating skills don’t match up with your cake decorating vision, you should give this trick a try!