J's Secret Weapon- Designed by J!

Tonight is our ward's Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet. Each scout is supposed to bring a cake that he has made all by himself. The cakes will be judged and then eaten as dessert. We have done this several years now. Since we always seem to be in a different ward each year, we just keep making the same cake. It's super easy for J to make and decorate and he always feels like he does a good job and he is very proud of the completed project. (You know how it goes, if something works, why mess with it.) But somehow I have never managed to remember to take any pictures so, since this is our last year in cub scouts for a few years (Yeah!) , I remembered to take pictures. J also wanted some proof that he really did make this all by himself!

Okay, some stories first: One year the boys had to bring the cakes made but not decorated and then they had about 15 minutes to decorate them and then the cakes were judged. This cake worked out well because it was really easy to put together. The part that takes the longest is putting on the brown frosting all over the cake. That's why the cake is chocolate. A little tear here or there all blends in and will probably be covered by something else.

Another year, the scouts had a father/son cake decorating contest where the cakes were to be decorated at home by the scout and his father and then brought to be judged. This cake worked well for that also because Hubby did not have any time to think about a cake and J was able to do this on his own. In fact that year, a boy made the comment to J, "Well, if my dad could have taken the whole day off to stay home and work on my cake with me, mine would have looked cool also but my dad had to work all day." J's comment was, "My dad hasn't even seen this cake yet. He's still at work. I hope he get's here before it gets eaten though. I want him to see how great our cake turned out!"

Now, because I know many of you have or will have little Cubbies who may need a great cake idea someday, J has given me permission to share his winning design with you with hopes that if your son uses it, he will love it as much as J does.

The first thing J did was draw a picture of the completed design and then he made a list of supplies.

After a trip to Target, it was time to get started. First J picked out the sizes of pans he wanted for his cake. He chose a 9x13 and a bread pan. He used a chocolate cake mix and divided it between the two pans.

When the cakes had cooled, he stacked them on top of each other. (They look a little white because he made sure he used plenty of flour in the pans so the cake would not stick!) We just covered the back of a big cookie sheet with tin foil.

Now begins the fun part, decorating. He covered the whole cake with chocolate frosting. We slid some wax paper under the edges of the cake so that when J is finished making a mess, I mean decorating the cake, we can slide the wax paper out and the tin foil is still clean underneath making the finished cake look even more like it was done by someone older than a Cub Scout.

Then he mixed some chocolate frosting along with some green food coloring into white frosting until he got the desired color of camouflage that he wanted. Then he added the green frosting to the cake.

Next he added Oreos to the side to make the wheels and black licorice to make the tread.

Finally he used a big chocolate covered pretzel stick(we've used a tootsie roll stick in the past but it is really heavy and I couldn't find one this time and now I think I like the pretzel better), added some camo to it, and then poked it into the cake.

A few finishing touches,

and the end result is a very cool looking army tank, made entirely by my Cub Scout.