Happy Birthday Prince!

So this last weekend was the Prince's birthday. He chose to have a Spiderman themed party and I pretty much went with it. I served Peter Parker Spidey Punch, Green Goblin Guacamole, Doc Oct's meatballs, and Venom's Caramel Apple dip. I didn't really make anything special, I just renamed everything for the occasion. I have this thing in my brain, call it guilt for being a working mother if you must, but I HAVE to make his birthday cake myself. Don't let me pull too hard on your heart strings...I use a box cake. This year, with the Spiderman theme I was really at a loss for what I would do. I thought briefly about buying one of those cake pans from Michaels, but since I'm also incredibly cheap I didn't want to invest in something that I would probably never use again. So I searched for a few ideas via the lovely and amazing Google. I found someone had made a street scene with Spiderman saving the day. While I didn't get too involved with the cake process (he's only three and it's going to be eaten!) I came up with this.

I purchased the Spiderman figurine and it actually worked out really well. Here are some pictures that explain how it was created.

I started with two yellow cake mixes. I baked one mix in a regular 9X13 inch pan, and the other cake mix was split in two square pans. I baked the cakes on Wednesday (for a Saturday party) and froze them so the would be easier to work with.

I used bamboo skewers to support the buildings. These went all the way down through the base of the cake.
I frosted the cake from top to bottom. I used an entire recipe of cream cheese frosting (from Betty Crocker's New Cook Book) for the structuring of the buildings and the outside. Then I had to make another batch for the base of the cake.
We used spray food coloring to make the grass look more "real". Although it is a cake based on a comic book so either way it would have been okay.After a couple hours of sitting out, the towers did start to lean. In the picture above I had to "shim" the building on the left even after I frosted it. *Tip from a Novice: always have a little extra cake to use for shimming or propping up the cake* Also, by the time I got the base covered with the new batch of frosting the buildings' frosting had hardened a little. Therefore the spray food coloring didn't soak in very well (you can see the near disaster in the picture above). I just used the rest of the second batch of frosting, dyed it red and re-frosted the buildings.
I purchased black frosting in the tube (black frosting is all over the place since the Prince's birthday is in October!) since I have no idea how to make black frosting. I then used icing to make the street "dashes" and Hersey's chocolate bars are the windwos. We thought the skewers looked like antenea's so we left them, but you can clip them down with a utility scissors or wire clippers, then frost over the top. Be sure to remember that there are skewers inside before serving!

Adding Spiderman to the top and we were set!

I did write Happy Birthday on the street. We tried to make a white chocolate spiderweb, but I over cooked the chocolate (damn my multitasking) and I had no time to go out for more. There was so much more we could have done (added cars on the street, or crushed chocolate cookies on the roof to look like tar), but I thought this turned out well for my first try (and sometimes less is more!)

Now let's see what I can cook up for his 4th birthday!! Happy Birthday my little Prince!