A Reader’s Cakeover – Aloha Shirt cake

Several months ago, one of our client’s at cakelava wanted a custom birthday cake for her husband around the time of our book’s release. We were already committed and couldn’t make the cake, unfortunately. Shortly after their party, we were ecstatic to learn her 8-year old daughter made the Aloha Shirt cake from Extreme Cakeovers for her father’s birthday party, and she had documented the experience with step-by-step photos, which were sent to us. We were so happy to receive the photos and couldn’t believe our eyes!

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First, she scraped the frosting and decorations off the store-bought sheet cake.

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Once the sheet cake was prepared, the cut frozen pound cake sleeves were placed next to the shirt body.

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Using a ruler, she measured 1 inch below the top edge of the sheet cake and placed the pound cake sleeves with their diagonal sides against the sheet cake to form the shape of the shirt.

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She scooped a can of store-bought frosting into a mixing bowl.

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Then tinted the frosting blue with food coloring…

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and mixed it up.

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Using an offset spatula, she frosted the Aloha shirt. Look at her taking control of the frosting. She looks like a pro!

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We love how she customized her Aloha Shirt cake to make it look like one her daddy would wear. He likes the pullover style of shirt, rather than a button down style, so she decided to make that one. We want the readers to make the cakes their own, make it special to them!

After mixing the green frosting and putting it into the plastic bag, she tested her pinhole cut – as suggested in the book – getting comfortable with the piping technique before making the green squiggly vines for the flowers. She tested directly on the cake, in an area that would be later covered with a marshmallow plumeria flower. Brilliant!

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She placed her first marshmallow plumeria flower near the bottom of the Aloha shirt. Using her paintbrush, she brushed the bottom third of each petal with yellow frosting.

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More marshmallow plumeria flowers were added to the cake, then she piped the squiggly vines.

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Her mother made a small confession to us. They forgot to pick up the Wrigley’s Spearmint Gum at the grocery store, which would be used to make the leaves of the plumerias, so they went without. We thought the shirt looked terrific, even without the leaves!

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All finished and ready to present to her daddy at his pool party! Here is our adorable little cake decorator and her mommy with their Aloha Shirt Cakeover!

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We adore this photo where she presents the cake she made (almost all by herself) to her daddy, who looks very happy to receive it! They couldn’t have selected a more perfect cake for the occasion and we were happy our Aloha Shirt cake was included in their celebration!