Dad turns 60!

My dad turns 60 next week but the jammy sod is off to celebrate it in the Caribbean. But he still had to have a cake before he goes as it's the law don't you know?!

So here's my cake for a 6(0) year old as he works in construction and my boys love diggers. I followed two tutorials to create the construction themed centre and topped the cake with choc fudge frosting, chocolate chips and chopped up crunchies. The cake itself was vanilla and chocolate. It was supposed to be coffee but let's not go there. I almost made it choc orange but decided not to last minute.

Here are the two tutorials 

http://fredellicious.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/slanted-stripe-cake-tutorial.html?m=1

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oFCEZh2xlpI

I settled on a 7" cake rather than an 8" seeing as he's going away so not much chance to finish it. Having said that though it soon got chopped up and demolished.

One cake was coloured with yellow and orange gel food colouring and the second cake I made with cocoa powder and added black gel food colouring.

I was very nervous to attempt to cut the cakes and mine is far from perfect but not bad for a first attempt with a 4 and 3 year old asking to help constantly. 

You don't know how it's going to look until it's cut open. Eeeeeeeek!

Using the tutorials, I cut round the edge of the 7", then cut round a 5" disc then finally a 3", popped each cake out and reassembled. I'd also frozen the cakes for 3 hours (3-5 is recommended) before cutting.

I didn't take many photos of how to assemble as the tutorials explain it well but here's my two reassembled 

I popped a layer of fudge frosting between the two cakes then covered the top and sides

Max placed the dumper on top for me. Look how proud they are 😝😝

The big reveal!

And my card. Love it!