Birthday Cake Contest: Update!

Thanks again to everyone who has been sending me such inspired creations for Babble’s Birthday Cake Contest. I am getting a ton of submissions — you guys are very good parents! This one came in last week from “Beth.” Her daughter wanted a Chinese New Year themed birthday party for her 8th and here’s the dragon cake she came up with. How cute is that? (Click to the jump to hear how she did it.) Keep the pics coming — send to me at Jenny AT babble.com!

From Beth:

The cake is based on “Old Swampy,” an alligator cake from
Hello, Cupcake! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson.  We modified it slightly to create a dragon.

The cake is an arrangement of 24 cupcakes frosted by creating a series of columns of layered U-shaped loops to make the scales.  The eyes are 2 large marshmallows left unfrosted on the ends.  The teeth are cut up pieces of large marshmallow.  The claws are banana “Runts” candy.  The bony plates are Newman’s Own chocolate alphabet cookies cut on the diagonal.  The nostrils are Jelly Belly jelly beans.  The pupils of the eye are Junior Mints candies.  The flames are layers of fruit roll-up cut with a sharp knife.  We used red-velvet cake in red cupcake liners.