Let them Eat Cake!

 Once upon a time, long ago before I gave birth to my own children, I loved to make fancy cakes, pies, cookies, cupcakes, and pretty much anything sweet. I made some really adorable birthday cakes for my little sister and many of my nieces and nephews.  Now that I have my own children, carving out the time for such things doesn't always happen. It seems like when you are trying to plan the entire party and clean your whole house, making a fancy cake takes a back seat.

Poor Maggie Just got a cake with toys stuck in it! She was happy, so that's all that really matters!

 The last couple of years on my daughter Zayda's birthdays I have used a butter cream transfer technique. I have found this technique to be very fast and easy. It hasn't produced the most perfect images for me, but my kids don't seem to care about perfection, so it worked for us.
Last year was Rapunzel from the movie Tangled

This year was a ballerina

I took a coloring page that I had printed from a free online web site (   http://www.coloring.ws/coloring.html is a good place).
I laid the page on a flat cookie sheet and then covered it with clear cling wrap (seran wrap).
I piped the image onto the cling wrap, starting with the black outlines first and then filling in the other colors. I placed the whole cookie sheet in the freezer for at least a few hours.
I went ahead and made a regular cake and iced it flat. After the image was good and frozen, I took it out of the freezer and flipped in onto the cake and peeled off the cling wrap.
This would probably work a lot better with a simple image and not a human face, but leave it to my children to ask for something difficult.
A few years ago, Zayda had what I thought was a pretty strange request, but it turned out cute

I just started with a couple regular 13x9 cakes, cut them into letters, and iced them with buttercream icing.

It wasn't fabulous, but it was a big hit with my little diva!!
I like to make a cake just for the birthday girl (or boy) and cupcakes for everyone else. Having a cake all to themselves makes the day even more special.
Just a note: wilton spray icing color is great if you are going for nice looks, but in my daughter's opinion ( and the opinion of most of my Girl Scout Troop), it tastes terrible (very chemical taste). So if you chose to use it, don't use to much if someone is going to be judging the taste of your creation!