Adventures in Baking a Chick Hicks Cake.

I am not a good cook.

I can feed my family, but I don't really enjoy cooking, so I don't like to spend a lot of time on it. Quick and easy tends to be the name of the game for me.

But even though my skills are lacking, due to C's food allergies, baking my own cakes for special occasions has been a necessity. My boys, just like most kids, come up with some pretty fancy requests. I try to accommodate to the best of my ability, and I think I've had some pretty good results over the years.

O's 1st birthday Elmo cake...

Part of C's 3rd birthday train cake...

This year, when C said that he wanted a Chick Hicks cake (why the "bad" guy from the movie CARS is his favorite, I have no idea!) I thought, "No Problem!" I planned to make a regular round cake, and then freehand a 2D Chick Hicks on the top, just like I did with O's Elmo cake. I was all set! Until yesterday, when C informed me that he didn't want a round cake, he wanted the cake to actually LOOK like Chick Hicks. And to make sure that it had his number 86 on it. And the sponsor (htB for "hostile takeover bank"...See I told you he was the bad guy!).

UH OH...

I was stumped. But then Hubby mentioned that Chick is quite a boxy car, so I could probably make something using rectangular cake pans. Hmmm....that might work. I told C I would give it my best try, but that he couldn't be upset if it didn't come out right. And after a long afternoon, my stacked rectangle/square cakes (with some carving to create angles for the windshields) did sort of turn into Chick Hicks. It didn't come out exactly like I was imagining it in my head, but it was pretty close.

C was thrilled and said "Mom!! It's awesome!! It looks just like the real Chick!!"  And I let out a sigh of relief!

Now let's just hope it doesn't collapse before we get a chance to eat it!