Camouflage Cake

This past weekend, we celebrated my son's 4th birthday with an 'Army Man' inspired party.  And so, I set out on a mission to create him an 'army' inspired cake and some cookies:)  I looked all over the internet and got lots of images of a cake made to look like a tank...or a camo cake on the outside.. hmmmm... I have limited time and skills, so I really didn't think making the cake look like a tank was an option for me.  But, I really wanted to do something camo.  So, this is what I came up with:

It is a 1/2 sheet size (needed the size for our battle scene on top), vanilla cake with a buttercream and fondant covering.

I made the inside cake camo:

This is what it looked like before it went in the oven

This is what it looked like when I flipped it out of the pan

To get this look, here is what I did (so easy):
1. Make vanilla/white cake
2. Divide batter into three bowls
3. Color each bowl of batter a different color (I did black, brown and green)
4. Using an ice-cream scoop, I plopped out cake batter randomly across the pan
5. I than used a knife to swirl it all together so it was smooth and even before baking (not too much swirling or it will all turn to a grayish black color...kinda like your kids do to their paints when they first start painting.. lol)

That's it.  Easy, right??

Next, I made a simple buttercream frosting and tinted it a tan color to match with the color scheme.  Smeared it all over the cake to prepare for a nice smooth fondant cover.

For the fondant- I have a lot of white...so I colored the fondant.  I put a big blob on my board and randomly put brown, black and green coloring in it.  I than kneaded it all together so the colors could blend.  I got a very grayish/army greenish color.

Hindsight here people... I think it would have been better to make 3 separate fondant blobs and color them individually.  Than, like the cake batter, randomly place them on my board and roll them together.  I may have to try this with the colored fondant I do have (red, blue, yellow, brown...hmmmmm, that could be cool).

And, again with this whole time constraint issue, I decided to put a 'battle' scene on top of the cake.  Max loved it and I think it turned out great!!

These were the camo inspired cookies that went along with it:)

From one baker to the next, Happy Baking!!