Basketballs and Ninjago

This past week, I helped a little boy celebrate a Birthday!

At first, he requested Cake Pops like the Lego Ninjago guys. Then he changed his mind and requested Basketball cupcakes for school and a Ninjago Cake for his family’s party.

I was happy to help, but a bit nervous. Cupcakes, I can do, but full on cakes scare me. Also, I have a daughter, so I’m all about the girl stuff – I had no clue what Ninjago’s were much less how to decorate a cake based on these guys. I researched the internet for the Lego men and came across a pin on Pintrest… and it lead me to THIS. It looked easy enough and I figured I could do it.

The basketballs were easy enough. I’ve been a long time follower of Hoosier Homemade and the Hello,Cupcake books, so when I saw these cupcakes a while back, I knew they would be perfect!

So, I baked 3 dozen cupcakes.

I made orange colored butter cream frosting.

I made some backboards.

Frosted the cupcakes, dipped them in orange sugar, and added the black lines.

(Ya wanna know something that I learned… It’s difficult to pipe frosting on to sugar. There’s just not much there for the frosting to adhere to.)

As the final step, I attached the backboards to the cupcakes.

I am happy to say that all the kids at school enjoyed these 🙂

I rushed off to get these to Mom, so I did not get a chance to take pictures and sadly, it did not occur to me to make extra…

After I dropped off the cupcakes, I got to work on the cake!

I made my own Marshmallow, White Chocolate Fondant.

It is so good, and I should have thought to take pictures… but I didn’t. Anybody care for the recipe? I know there are a ton out there….

The Birthday Boy requested a Green Ninja Man, so the night before I tinted my fondant and left the eyes to dry out over night.

The next day, I frosted my cake and go to rollin’. I did not want to cover the cake in two layers of fondant, nor did I want to just cut out the eyes, so I cut a disk of the yellow and then cut a large rectangle for the bottom part of the mask.

I rolled a long piece of fondant to create a fold at the nose and then draped the long rectangle over the lower part of the cake to create the mask.

I attached the eyes and brows and then rolled out another rectangle for the top part of the mask.

It was easier than I thought.

The Birthday Boy and his family love they cake – they almost didn’t want to cut into it 🙂

That’s news to my ears!

I link up to THESE parties.

Kathy

Sunday 6th of March 2016

Thank you for your step by step Ninjago cake. So easy to follow, I created Jay for the birthday boy & matching cake pops.

Karyn Granrud

Monday 7th of March 2016

Sp glad it was helpful! I hope he loved it!

Stephanie

Monday 7th of October 2013

Thank you so much for sharing your detailed instructions. Like others, I used your ideas as inspiration for my own green Ninjago cake for my son's 6th birthday party. He loved it! It was my first time working with fondant and I REALLY appreciated the explanations, instructions, and pictures you provided. Thank you!

Kim

Monday 8th of February 2016

This looks great, I am definitely going to try the ninjago cake for my son's birthday. I am planning on making a regular Victoria sponge cake. Would this hold the weight of the fondant do you know? I've just starting using rolled fondant and it worked well on the last Victoria sponge I made however the ninjago cake has extra layers of fondant so am hoping it won't collapse? Would like to keep to my recipe if possible rather than making a denser cake but want to be sure first it won't collapse. Please let me know what you think. Many thanks!

Anonymous

Wednesday 17th of July 2013

Ive never made fondant before, I would love the recipe you used and shall cross my fingers that making it look like fabric is not as hard as it looks! Can you send the recipe for all the bits and pieces?

Thanks!! Lisa

[email protected]

Thursday 9th of May 2013

i would love your marshmallow fondant [email protected]

Tuesday 2nd of April 2013

Hi Karyn,

How did you make the eyes and eyebrows?

And, yes, Lees -- please share!!

Alley