Thursday, December 20, 2012

A "Brobee" for Madysen

I'm going to start this blog post by answering the question that is (most likely) first and foremost on your mind;
                   
This is a Brobee. 

Don't feel bad if you didn't know what it was. I didn't really know either until about the first part of November. This little guy is a character on my niece Madysen's favorite show, "Yo Gabba Gabba". If you, your children or grandchildren have never watched it, take my advice; Don't. 
It's a pretty silly show, with lots of funny little monsters who run around and sing. Now, granted, they do teach them things about manners, etc, but the way they go about it is nuts. 

Anyway, Brobee is Mady's favorite, so as her 3rd birthday grew closer, November 29th, Brittany came to me asking if I could make a Brobee cake for her party. I'd been taking a cake decorating class for the month of November, and I was kind of anxious to do something on my own, but I wasn't sure if I was up to this kind of challenge. 
Brittany and I sat down and Googled "Brobee birthday cake" and guess what. Apparently this is one popular little monster. Tons and tons of cakes were out there, so after looking through about 100 pictures, we picked out some of our favorites and started brainstorming. Brittany decided on the basic design, then I added a few  special touches of my own. Once the draft design was drawn, I studied it for a couple days and then got to work. I decided to bake it at the music store because it was that much closer to Brittany's house. hahaha



My first thought was to make the cake itself green. Then, when we sliced into it, he would have the Brobee stripes. So we did that. This is the batter before it was baked........


.....and after. 


Awesome right? Now, I have to apologize for the lack of pictures as I describe this next section. It took me a long time to decorate this little guy, and once I got on a roll, I didn't take time out for pictures. 
As for the main design of the cake, I have to give all the credit to Brittany. She told me exactly what she wanted. It was then my job to figure out how to make that happen for her. She wanted Brobee's face to be a lighter shade of green than his body. Check. That's not much of a problem. Just a little extra food coloring.
As for the Brobee "horns", I thought if I made some flat sugar cookies, I could just ice them with red icing. The trouble was going to be getting them to stand up on his "head". Coffee stirrers to the rescue! I baked the cookies with the stirrers already inside, then I used more to prop them up on his head. 

Brittany also wanted a flat cookie laying next to the cake, similar to the shape of the Yo Gabba Gabba sign.

However, instead of saying "Yo Gabba Gabba!", she wanted it to have a big M on it. So, more cookies to shape and bake, but at least this time I didn't need to stick wooden coffee stirrers in them. hahaha 

When all was said and done, I was SO happy about how everything turned out. 



I think the birthday girl even liked her cake. 


And.......I was right. It looked pretty awesome when it was cut.  


 So, all in all, I have to say that my first solo cake turned out pretty good. It even tasted good. Which goes a long way on a cake resume. Happy birthday, Mady. Ninny is happy you got your Brobee.