Lego Birthday Cake

   

 Confession time. I don't stare dreamily at my flour bucket and baking soda container, mesmerized by the thought of measuring and sifting. Neither do egg whites dance through my head, wanting to be beaten stiff.  It's a rare occasion when I actually have enough powdered sugar to make enough frosting for a small batch of scones, let alone a birthday cake...

     I'm quite allergic to eggs, actually. It's part of the "almost vegan" thing. The thought of them makes me ill.

     I don't wear my apron very often, either. It's white, with chocolate stains on it from the times I actually have used it...it's just not very cute. Now maybe if it were blue and orange polka dot, or pink and brown, or lime green, maybe then I'd wear it! But I'll tell you what I do with it later.

Today, my baby boy turned ten! This is a big occasion, only happens once! His very favorite thing in the whole world, besides me, would be Lego's. (His very favorite things, pardon the grammar)  We had a bet back when he was eight, that he'd be as tall as me by the time he turned ten...he lost. So I figured the least I could do was make the boy his very favorite thing, in cake form!

This isn't paint. It's frosting.

 Do you know how much food coloring it takes to turn white frosting into a decent shade of blue?? And, FYI, the whole "New and improved! Now True Red!" is really a joke? For the life of me I couldn't get it past a nice deep pink...so half a tube of yellow later, we got a nice orange.

This is another one of those Almost Vegan surprises - it's not just that this is an egg-free cake, with no dairy or oil...We're on the right path to vegan right there! But, alas, we went and spoiled it with the red food coloring. Ah, the things we do for love! Do you know what they make red food coloring out of? Go google it.  Needless to say, I personally did not partake of any of the orange bits...I picked the L off my piece.

Egg-Free Lego Birthday Cake

• 2 boxes cake mix (I used Pillsbury yellow cake.)

• 2 cans frosting (Again, Pillsbury. Classic vanilla.)

• 2 cups water 

• 2/3 cup applesauce

• 3 Tbls. Ener-g Egg Replace, mixed into an additional 1 cup of water

• Food coloring of choice

• Two loaf pans, one mini muffin tin, several Lego figures, love, music, and patience 

     Mix both cake mixes, two cups of water, and applesauce together. Measure additional cup of water, and add egg replacer, mixing quickly with whisk or fork to get it smooth. Pour into cake batter, mix well as you would with beaten eggs.  Make sure your pans are already prepared and your oven is heated. Measure out (I use a soup spoon) batter into muffin tin to make six mini muffins, and divide the rest of the batter between the two loaf pans. They should be half full. At this time, I personally sprinkled a handful of butterscotch chips into the batter in the pans - my son loves butterscotch, and I thought that finding a mysterious crunch as he was eating his cake would be vaguely reminiscent of the mysterious crunch that my feet feel when I walk in his room to tuck him in at night and step on his Lego's...but I digress. As quickly as you can after mixing the "eggs" into the batter, put the cakes into the preheated oven. The mini muffins should be done between 7-10 minutes, but the cakes will take an additional 20 minutes or so - check them when they are golden on the top by inserting a sharp knife or a toothpick. When they're done, set them on the cooling rack, wait ten minutes, and run a butter knife around the edges to make sure they're loose before you turn them over. Pray that the bottom was well greased, or you used parchment...nothing's worse than leaving half the cake stuck in the bottom of the pan!
     While your cakes are cooling, mix up your frosting. As in, scrape it out of the plastic container and into a mixing bowl (one at a time, not both at once, unless you want to do all one color) and add food coloring of your choice. Just a heads up, though - it takes a lot of food coloring to get a darker color. I think next time I'm going with lime green! As soon as your cakes are cooled, frost away!  Just remember that the mini muffins are the little thingy-madoodles on top of the Lego bricks that connect them to the other ones. Frost them one at a time after you get the base done. Decorate however you like, use whatever tools you have at your disposal - this isn't cake decoration 101 or anything. Personally, it took me about two hours to get these done after they came out of the oven, including mixing the frosting. When you're all done, wrap them up somehow (stick toothpicks in the sides to hold your wrapping up and away from the frosting) and put them in the fridge...I was out of plastic wrap and tin foil this afternoon, so guess what I wrapped mine up in? 

My apron.

Don't eat the red food coloring, but enjoy the yummies!