Making your own cake pan

People have asked how I made some of my shaped cakes. There are two ways to do it, you can bake a cake, freeze it and cut it the way you want. Or you can do it my way... just make the pan, bake it and done. It's more prep work but you know you'll get the shape you want. This is how I made my football, duck, strawberry, Elmo, frog, and others. So here we go!

First- I didn't get a picture of this but you want to draw your cake outline on a piece of cardboard and cut it out- I usually use an old diaper box or something I have lying around. Just make sure your outline doesn't have too many sharp corner indents as they don't turn out that great in cake.

Second- Get some HEAVY DUTY tinfoil that will be big enough to cover your cake base. For my size I needed the big size roll.








Third- Tape a layer of tin foil on each side of your cake base leaving at least 1 in around the outline.









 Fourth- cut snips along the extra tinfoil making sure not to cut all the way to the cardboard (I'll explain why in a minute!) Also snip at each indent so you can maneuver  your pan sides when attaching.







Fifth- Now for the complicated part- I'm sorry there are great pictures for this. Roll out your tinfoil, take your base and (on it's side) roll it 1 full turn until you have enough tinfoil to wrap around to create the sides. Always add at least 5 inches for indents and go bigger as cutting off excess is easier then adding more. Take that super long piece and fold in half, then half again. Fold again leaving the open side about 1 1/2 inches. (See pic) This will be your cake side so make sure it's as tall as you want- folding accordingly. Then snip about 1 in apart all the way down on the open side.

Sixth- Attach your side to your base by folding the side snips on top and with the base snips. (See pic) Try to be careful as the tinfoil will rip off and you'll be left with holes. Overlap the side a few inches and tape together with masking tape. This kind of tape does best in the oven so please don't try anything else.





Seventh- Take your cake and examine all sides taping where small holes may have occured to ensure your cake batter doesn't leak out. Now make your batter, fill and bake according to directions.






After your cake has cooled you can simply pull the sides off and you already have your cake on a cake board!

 Here's my finished cake, I had to fill it and I'll tell you that cutting and moving this huge cake was very stressful. I needed help when splitting the cake but we were able to do it without it breaking! I hope your cake works out!

A's Frog Cake & Fly Cupcake

I had the opportunity to make my nephew's first birthday cake. They had a frog themed party and invited a bunch of people! So to make sure there was enough cake to go around I decided to make a big Frog cake with lots of fly cupcakes.

Of course he needed his own smash cake for the best part of any party... letting the 1 year old go at it with all camera's flashing! So I made a 6" round cake and made it reflect the big frog's face.


They asked for a banana cake because he LOVES bananas but I didn't like the idea of making a cake with bananas and letting it sit out... I had nightmares of brown goo oozing out when I cut it- yuck. So instead I made a white cake with banana icing filling and buttercream frosting. It tasted like a banana cream pie in cake form! I made the large cake by making the cake pan so I had an exact outline of what I wanted, but the middle was a little too moist so I think next time I won't go that big.

I didn't fill the cupcakes so the people who didn't want banana flavor could still have cake. I think it turned out great and they ended up with alot of cake, but I didn't hear any complaints!

My favorite part of making a cake for someone is seeing their face light up when they see it for the first time and the "ummm... hummm" as they take the first bite and it's just what they wanted. Of course the b-day boy didn't say anything, but he ate alot of his cake so I'm assuming he thought it was good!

J Dragon Cake

My nephew J turned 4 and I got to make him a dragon cake because he is obsessed with all things dragon. I decided about 1 week before to make the cake so I couldn't put my usual prep into it. It started as a small cake with 1 dragon on top, then turned into 1 dragon on top with dinosaurs on the side. It ended up with a dragon cave, dragon shadow, and dinosaur shadows on the side. After I finished I realized how similar it looked to T's cake, but J still loved it!


I made a chocolate cake mix cake with buttercream frosting on top. But my sis wanted something oreo involved so I found an oreo filling that was delicious! We had leftover that we ate on graham crackers for a week!

 I made the cave look great with crushed oreo cookies and chocolate fondant for the front. All of the shadows were chocolate fondant cut with my cricut cake machine but these were just outlines that could be cut with cookie cutters as well.
So a pretty simple cake, but he loved it and at the end of the day that's what matters most.