The Beach Birthday Cake

My sweet Jo-Jo had her birthday this week.

I can't believe how she's grown.

We had a beach party in our yard.

There was a homemade slip'n'slide with lots

of soap, a water ballon sling, a pool,

the sand box, and squirt guns.

And then Jo-Jo wanted a special cake.

She found it in an old cake magazine

from Woman's Day.

I didn't have a lot of the candy that was in the orginal recipe,

but it is amazing what you can make out of starburst and gummy

lifesavers. We used some fondant and teddy grahams, too.

You'll need 1 box of cake, 2 icing cartons, teddy grahams, fondant, starburst, carmels, icing pens, lifesavers, gummy lifesavers, roll candy like tootsie rolls, and a 4 serving package of blue Jello.

Bake cakes in 2 round pans and follow the directions on the box. Let cool and then put in the freezer. Remove one of the cakes and cut out a circle from the middle of the cake. I left 1 1/2 inches on the sides and left about 1 inch of cake on the bottom. Then place the other cake layer on a serving plate and spread the top with frosting. 

Place the ring of cake on top of frosted layer. Carefully frost inside and outside of ring (be sure entire inside is coated), then frost sides of both cake layers with white frosting.

Then I put the blue wave around the edges with a flat tipped icing tip. Then put it in the refrigerator about 1 hour. To make the Jello, follow the speed-set driections. With a small ladle slowly fill in the pool. Refrigerate about 2 hours so that the pool is set.

To decorate use icing as glue:
bears-use food dye pens to draw on swim suits, eyes, and mouths

tiles-cut squares from two colors of fondant and put them on around the edges

diving boards-use the tootsie roll as a post, attach a starburst,

then put on a rolled out carmal,

use a gummy lifesaver cut in half as rails

for the small diving board-just omit the post

beach chairs-roll out starburst and cut into desired shape 

 We also made a float and beach ball out of starburst.

Two bears floated on a couple of lifesavers for tubes.

Set the decorations in place and refrigerate.

We didn't put anything in the pool

until just before we were going to eat the cake.

And the diving boards wouldn't fit with the cake cover

on top, so we put those on just before singing.

Although it turned out a little lop-sided,

it was delicious and the birthday girl loved it.

There wasn't a crumb left.

Wishing you homeschool blessings!

Bethany