This is a great example of a cake I made with all store-bought items . . . I just don’t think it’s necessary to bake from scratch. Fine, if you have the time, but the box cake mixes taste great and, even if you’re concerned about nut allergies, I’ve been told that the Betty Crocker brand can be trusted. For this, I used a Betty Crocker white cake mix and added a TINY bit of light blue Wilton gel icing coloring to some Duncan Hines butter cream frosting. Betty Crocker has a butter cream also, but it’s more of a whipped consistency which I personally do not prefer. (You’ll probably want to buy 2 boxes of cake mix and 2 or 3 containers of the frosting.)
I made this cake last fall for my youngest son’s 5th birthday and admit spending more time than I wanted on it, but putting it together was so fun it was more like play time for Mommy. The hardest part was frosting the cakes – to me anyway. I wanted the icing really smooth and it took some extra time. Investing in a basic icing knife is a good idea, if you’re going to do any baking. The blade part is nice and wide, with smooth edges on all sides; I use mine for cupcakes also.
Baking two 8 x 8 square cakes might be enough for this design, depending on how big you want the sections, but I think I baked three (or you could do an 8 x 8 and a 9 x 13). If memory serves, my Robot head was about 5 x 7 inches and the body was around 8 x 8 . . . any size you like will work, though, your choice. First, you should decide the size cake board you will use and adjust the dimensions of the body, head, feet, etc. based on that. (I used a large box side, cut from a big box we had lying around, because I needed something bigger than the usual 13 x 19 inch rectangular cake boards you will find in the stores.)
On top, you could use a lollipop, but I used a glazed doughnut hole on a cookie stick (I covered this with white candy melts that I tinted green, but you could use frosting also). I found chocolate covered Oreo halves for the ears, used the same – sliced open – for the eyes, Junior Mints for pupils – a dab of frosting holds them in place, red Gum Drops for the mouth. I used a chocolate Mini Doughnut for the neck.
More mini doughnuts – cut, of course – for the ‘claws’, smaller mini doughnuts for arms & legs (different brands are different sizes, even if they all say they are ‘mini’), and yellow Twizzlers with blue and green M&M’s on chest – around the “5” made up of Whoppers.
I used orange Mike & Ike candy for the laces on the robot’s shoes – the cake board is dressed up with two wrapping paper designs. (Tip: to keep the doughnuts from rolling around, I used a little bit of the frosting under them as a sort of ‘glue’.)
Have fun!
