Every year the local Cub Scout Pack has a cake auction to raise money. Parents and their scouts make a cake and bring it to the pack meeting where they boys bid on the cakes, the top three cakes with the highest bids are announced, money goes to the pack and cakes go home with the highest bidders.
This was our first year with Thomas in Cub Scouts, so our first year participating. Like a kid in a candy store (which I was later on in this story) I searched the Internet for a creative cake. Some suggestions I got from my wonderful FB friends were mud pies, dirt cups, kitty litter cake, swimming pool cake and treasure chest cake. Mud pies would be great for Cub Scouts, but I wanted something that would show a little more creativity. I made dirt cups for one of the Den meetings so those were out for now, but I'll have to post the recipe because they are tons of fun! I actually saw a lot of kitty litter cakes on sites showing pictures for entries into these Cub Scout cake auctions, but I just couldn't get past the.... well.... I have cats and.... gross. I decided on the Treasure Chest cake for awhile, but eventually got distracted with the swimming pool cake idea. After going to the store and finding nothing I needed for the swimming pool cake I threw a temper tantrum and chose a camping theme instead, so there. Of course when I went to the REAL candy store for the camping cake I found everything I needed for the swimming pool, but I was pretty excited about the camping cake idea.
First I Googled "camping cake" and looked at a bunch of them taking down ideas I liked from each one. Then I drew what I wanted the cake to look like on a piece of paper and had Thomas help decide what should be included and where it would go. Come to find out later I drew everything the size I wanted it to be to fit my idea, not the actual size... oops.
Then we made a list of what we would need from the store.
vanilla cake mix
chocolate frosting
eggs
oil
water
sugar cones (used 3)
kit kat bars (used 6)
small gummy fish (used 3)
brown jelly beans (used under 20)
candy rocks (used under 20)
airheads (used 2)
teddy grahams (used under 10)
gummy lifesaver (used 1)
red hots (used under 20)
heath bits (used about 1/2 cup)
green frosting (used 3 tubes... yeah.)
pretzel sticks (used under 10)
licorice whips (used about a foot worth?)
blue jello
4 packs knox unflavored gelatin
gummy frogs (used 3)
gum balls (used 2)
chocolate bar (used one large)
tootsie roll candies (for the long ones about 3)
1 tube blue frosting
1 tube yellow frosting
What I bought and what I actually used..... I have a lot of leftover candy. So I suggest going to a candy store like Sweet Factory where you pay by the pound and can pick out 1 gummy life saver instead of buying the whole pack. I did go to that candy store, but realized the cake was ginormous in my head and there wasn't nearly enough room for my plans.
To make the cake *This is how I made this one, I will post things I'll do differently at the end:
Bake the box mix cake in a disposable cake pan and let it cool completely.
While the cake was baking I dressed my Cub Scout bears. I used the blue frosting for the uniform shirt and slacks and then the yellow frosting for the bandanna. I also made the canoe out of an airhead and put one bear in the canoe and one in the gummy saver.
Cut out your lake, don't cut all the way to the pan. Frost cake with chocolate frosting. Mom says freeze it before you frost it for easier frosting, thanks Mom. Love you :)
Use the recipe on the back of the know for knox blocks (a childhood favorite by the way) but instead of juice use water and add the blue jello mix to the hot water before you add the knox. Put it in a pan to set up in the fridge. When it's slightly set, enough solid not to seep into your cake, scoop some out to fill your lake. Add gummy fish in the water, boat and swimming scout. Let it finish setting.
Next was the trees. Okay so I was impatient and made the trees while the jello was setting up. A brilliant idea I saw while browsing the Internet. Turn a sugar cone upside down and push into the cake so it's stable. You can break part of the cone off for a shorter tree. Use the star looking tip on the green frosting and cover the trees. It took one tube of frosting to cover one full tree and the shorter one or one full tree and a bush.
The bushes are gumballs covered in green frosting like the trees with red hots added for berries.
We placed candy rocks around the edge of the lake and gummy frogs in various places.
For the campfire we cut the candy rocks in half and made a fire circle. Red hots for the coals, pretzel sticks for the.... sticks and licorice rope for the flames. Sure the fire is huge compared to the teddy bear scouts, but oh well. For a birthday cake I would use a candle in the fire :) We placed the tootsie roll candies (small pieces) as logs around the fire and put a teddy scout at every other one.
We outlined a path from where the cabin would be to the lake and around the fire pit with brown jelly beans. Using Heath toffee bits for rocks or sand we filled in the path.
The cabin was the most difficult part.... so I made Mike do it :) Using kit kat bars and melting the other chocolate bar for glue he pieced it together. He put a couple pieces together and then let it chill for a few minutes to harden.
While he was making the cabin I ate candy..... I mean.... I surrounded two teddy scouts with airhead sleeping bags to put inside the cabin.
Because the cake was not flat we used caramels to prop up the back and make it more level. We covered those up with "grass" made of more green frosting.
Next time:
I'll make a bigger and flatter cake.
I'll make the rocks around the lake smaller.
I'll figure out how to make a fishing pole.
I'll make the fire smaller.
I'll crush the Heath bits for a finer sand.
I know I had more ideas, but I'm sleepy.
Out of 19 cakes we tied second place and our cake raised $21 for the Pack.
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