Manic Mama Miles: Look Whoo is 1! Owl Cake & Cupcakes

I would love to be a baker. I wish I was. I am not. I also wish I was neat. I am not. But I can occasionally follow some boxed cake instructions & decided that I would make Addy's smash cake & some cupcakes for her "Look Whoo is 1!" birthday party. I mentioned in the post about Addy's baptism party that I love strawberry cupcakes & strawberry cream cheese icing. Since I wanted the food to either be owl themed or pink & green, the strawberry cake & cupcakes worked perfectly.

I wanted to try & make an owl for the cake. I wish I could make the beautiful fondant cakes with all the intricate details, but I'm just too messy. So I stick to regular cake & regular icing & do what I can. To make the body of the owl, I used my quart size baking bowl. I made the cake mix according to the boxed directions & poured in the batter as much as I could while still giving it some room to rise. I baked that & then poured the rest of the batter in & baked that.

Anchor Hocking 81575L5 2.5 Qt. Glass Mixing Bowl

I don't know if it was that dish in particular, the fact that I was using a glass bowl or what (cause like I said, not a baker), but this cake took FOREVER to bake. Much longer than a regular cake or cupcakes in the baking sheets or cupcake pans. I just kept checking it with toothpicks & took it out when the toothpick finally came out clean. I shaved down the tops of the cakes to make them level. Because I had used more batter in the first little cake, the second little cake was smaller. That worked perfect for the owl shape I wanted to create. After I shaved the tops down, I iced the top of the bigger cake, then flipped the smaller cake upside down onto the bigger cake, making the two tops of the cakes meet. I then iced the entire little owl body and was ready to decorate. I love Oreos. Who doesn't? I love to use them to make cheesecakes like for Ally's baby shower & I love to use them on pretty much anything that I feel like I can get away with using them on. And I thought that the owl smash cake should be no exception. I cut an Oreo in half to make the ears & then iced over them. Then I took another Oreo apart & cut the cookie part in half to make the little owl arms. I opened up two additional Oreos & used them as the eyes. I used M&Ms for the eyes, just like I did for the owl cheeseball. Candy is great for decorating cakes & cupcakes. There are all sort of suggestions of things to use. As I learned when making the Duck Cupcakes for my niece's baby shower, I like using Airheads. They are flexible, yet sticky so they stay put when you stick them somewhere. I used an orange Airhead for the owl's nose. The owl smash cake turned out pretty cute & Addy girl loved it once she figured out what in the world it was that we were trying to stick her face into. : )

The owl cupcakes were also pretty easy to make & were decorated with what else? Oreos, M&Ms & airheads. : ) I bought mini Oreos for these. I just made the strawberry cupcakes & iced them with the strawberry cream cheese icing. I opened up the mini Oreos & stuck the sides with the cream left onto the cupcakes as owl eyes. It's terrible guys, but you will have some Oreos that break or you have to only use half, etc. I strongly suggest eating all of those leftover Oreo pieces. It's good for the soul. Anyway, like with the owl smash cake & the owl cheeseball, I used M&Ms for the eyes & then an orange Airhead for the nose. I then used some pieces of the bigger broken Oreos (see I didn't eat all of them, haha) for the arms.

Here are some of the little guys. I kinda wish I would have used just the brown M&Ms for eyes, but that would have put us eating a ton of leftover M&Ms of the other colors & at some point, I needed to pump the brakes on the sugar I was ingesting before & during this party. : )