Crab Birthday Cake

by Kate
(Massachusetts)

Cute Crab Birthday Cake

The crab birthday cake was designed to resemble my son's favorite toy, a crab rattle.

The body of the crab was made using 2 yellow cake mixes (together) in a 9" round cake pan. I then cut a wedge off of the bottom to make the cake more oval shaped and I used that piece to create the eyes. (I just trimmed it until it looked about right for the shape of the eyes.)

I left the cake right side up to create a rounded body. The "rattle" parts are made from two Texas sized cupcakes (I made these from the batter of the two cake mixes). The yellow, purple, and pink parts are made using swiss cake rolls.

I frosted the entire body of the cake with white frosting as a base and then decorated with a star tip on top of the base.

The frosting is basic shortening and sugar frosting using paste food coloring for all of the coloring. I frosted the blue handle flat and then used a flat frosting tip for the lines.

All other decorating was done with round and star tips (size doesn't matter too much. I used all three of my medium sized star tips.) When decorating the Swiss cake rolls, it was helpful to refrigerate them before frosting because they melt in your fingers while you're trying to frost them. The eyes and mouth were added at the last minute with a tube of black decorating gel. (This gets very messy if you try to put plastic wrap over it.)