Need Help with Birthday Cake!

Wow what a request from the little one!:) I don't have any new suggestions but as some of the other moms mentioned, try the sheet cakes with decorations and airbrushing. I once saw (i think at joann fabrics) little decorative cages with birds (about 5 inches tall) inside of them and so maybe you could make a nice round cake and add this to the top. Shape cakes may be easy for some but reading one of the postings below on how to cut it, it didn't make me want to give it a try. :) I would have someone make a great big colorful parakeet cake for less (sams/costco/jewel) and enjoy my day with little birthday superstar.

I know someone in the Elgin area that does cakes and of you want I can give yoiu her name and number if you are interested??? Let me know!!! She would do an awesome job I promise you that!!! :)

I carve up cakes myself all the time. It just takes a little patience. Print out an outline as big as you can. Bake a sheet cake, /freeze it/ so it's firm and the with a sharp knife, cut it out around the outline. Be careful not to cut yourself!!!

Before frosting, seal the crumbs in with an apricot glaze (recipes online) or a thin layer of melted chocolate.

Alternatively, I think there are dragon/t-rex cake pans out there. You could frost one of those to look like a parakeet. Good luck

This is a great book for making creative cakes: http://www.amazon.com/FamilyFun-Birthday-Cakes-Party-Trea...
I have to make dairy and egg free cakes so, they are rather creative since the centers usually sink : ( This book has been great. To make a bird shaped cake, it suggest starting with a loaf pan, a small round and a large round. ( I cook in my pyrex storage containers to get different sized rounds). Cover a cardboard cake sheet with tin foil and then gently place your cooled cakes on the sheet so that they fit together to make a bird. You'll need to cut a semi-circle out of the body for the head to fit. For the tail, cut the loaf cake into a long triangle type shape that would resemble the tail. You could use the extra piece as a perch for the bird to "sit" on since it would be hard to make feet out of cake. You could use black licorice for the feet and green gum drops for eyes. You could ice in yellow and then use some kind of flat yellow candy to layer to make a wing. It helps if you put the cake in the freezer for a couple of hours before trying to ice it too. Hope that helps. My cakes are far from perfect but, they are always the talk of the party. I've made a Transformer, a panda, a huge ladybug and a 3-tiered princess cake. Hope that helps : )

Hey B.,
Why not make a sheet cake with green frosting (to be like tree/grass colored) and then get a bunch of fake parakeets and put them on top. I'm sure they have all sorts of birds at your local art/craft supply store.
Or maybe you could find a parakeet stencil that you could use to paint one on the sheet cake.
Or you could place an ad on your local craigslist in the artists section and see if anyone might have a better idea and/or be able to do it for you for a decent price/trade.
I hope that helps. :)
blessings,
J.

Be a brave mama! You can do this! First off- do you have any friends or relatives who like to bake or have made cakes? Ask them for help or see what they would charge to make it for you. But if you are on your own, you can do this with a sheet pan and a couple of round cake pans. Think about how a parakeet is shaped from the side. Then imagine the sheet pan cake as the biggest part in the center of the body. Where is it rounded? On the front, where the wing curves and on the head. (Possibly even make a cupcake or two with a little leftover batter so you have some smaller cake pieces to work with for bird feet and a rounded head.)

The most important thing is to make yourself a diagram with the shapes that you need. Then bake the cakes and cut them to fit the pieces you need and stick them all close together. Ice everything ( I would recommend making your own icing if you know how for this, rather than using a store-bought icing. Make the icing a little stiffer than normal for the bottom coat- it will help sort of hold everything in place) Then get a couple piping bags and tips at a craft store and some decorating icing and just experiment. It might be a lot of work, but you will have made a homemade cake- be proud! You'll look back on the pictures years later and smile :)

how about this
http://www.packerlighting.com/CR_WEB/images/thumbnail/Gre...

I don't know if you have a parakeet but you can get a picture of one and go to Sam's. For $16 and some cents you can get a half a sheet cake with the bird on it.

For my son's first birthday we put a pic of him the day he was born. They do a good job. It tastes good and they will put words, balloons, and other stuff on it for no extra charge. All you need is a detailed 4x6 picture on photo paper.

Good Luck!

Find a bakery in your area that can print out pictures on rice paper with edible ink. Jewel does this. Get a picture of a parakeet off the internet and have the cake made up. Very easy, no screwing around with carving it etc. plus it is not expensive. You might even find a bakery that will print out the image for you on the rice paper so you can make the sheet cake yourself.

Ok - here's what you do. (I hope you have a little bit of the artist in you) Go buy two boxes of Duncan Hines or Pillsbury super moist cake mix and at least two tubs of regular vanilla frosting (not whipped) and a box of food coloring. Make both boxes of mix and use almost all of it to 2/3s fill a 9x13 pan. It will take a while for the cake to cook. Cool it and take it out of the pan and put it on a large tray or cutting board.

Find a picture of a parakeet - a cartoon or caricature would be best b/c its somewhat simplified. Mix up the frosting and food coloring to make the various colors. Put one layer of frosting on the cake (sides too). It could be white or blue for sky? Sometimes its easier to trace the outline of the thing you're creating onto the cake with a toothpick. Also a can of black frosting that comes with the applicator tips is handy to outline the shape. Then put the various colors in separate ziploc bags and cut a tiny hole in the corner. Use these bags like pastry bags to pipe the icing onto the cake.

I have used this method to make spongebob cakes, winnie the pooh, barney etc etc. Its kind of labor intensive but it comes out fun and very kid friendly - and easy to cut and serve.

GOod luck!

what if you found a picture of a parakeet and had it mounted on the cake. Nowadays, you can have all kinds of pictures converted to cake toppers. It would probably be way less expensive than having an actual cake shaped like a parakeet.

Hi B.-

Can you just have the bakery make a regular shaped cake and make a parakeet out of icing on the top? Maybe they can make a whole scene of parakeets sitting in trees or something...just a thought. Good Luck

check wilton.com, if you cannot find the cake pan anywhere how about trying to find a good picture of a parakeet, laminate it and put it on top of a blank sheet cake. my friend recently did this with a little known sesame street character who her son loves and it turned out great! good luck and happy birthday to little one.

shape cakes are not all that difficult.
Just remember that you are beginning with standard geometric shapes (circle,square, rectangle).
I would suggest you trace around the pans you have and would like to use. Take the paper pieces (make more than one paper "pattern" so you can experiment) and cut them into the shapes you need for the features you want. I don't know how to attach a diagram for this, so want more help with this, I guess you could send me your e-mail and I will send you more.... I would go for a larger rectangle to make the body and the tail feathers, I would then trim 1/2 the layer away in the body/tail feather area (top to bottom so it is NOT as high as the wing portion. I would take a round pan for the head/beak and again, trim the head portion to 1/2 depth.0 Be sure to brush away as many of the crumbs as you can before applying the frosting. I would use a pastry bag and a star tip to drop little bits of frosting onto the cake rather than applying with a knife (less crumbs get picked up and it will provide you with the texture of the feathers. You can do small dots all over, or drop and drag some of the areas to create more texture.
Stop by your local library and pick up a Wilton cake decorating book...it will give you lots of tips how to pull this off. It will be fun and it may open the door to a whole new hobby.

Like the previous post, I carve it myself. Depending on how many people you need to feed, bake a cake(s) from a box mix in a 9 x 13 pan. Carve it up using a picture of a parakeet that you can blow up to the size you need by copying the picture. I end up having to tape pieces of paper together. Cut out the parakeet from the paper, lay it on top of your sheet cakes, use a serated knife and cut around the picture. I've done this doing a Nemo cake and a Hula Girl cake. Tricky, but the decorating is fun. Good luck!

OMG. That is the most adorable request for a b-day cake ever:^)

Is his heart set on a bird-shaped cake, or would your son want a sheet cake with a picture of a parakeet? There are places like Jewel that will air-brush photos on cakes for a reasonable price.

Another option would be to get some novelty decorations, like toy birds, and put them on a round cake. Just a thought...

I would recommend using a rectangular pan to bake cakes make a template of a picture & carve the cake out in that shape u might wantto lightly ice it &use fondants or just ice &decorate

make a 9 X 13 cake. Use a circle cookie cutter to cut out a corner to be the head. Use a scrap to be the beak. Cut out a rectangle and round the corners to be an oval for the body. Use a large rectangle for the tail. Frost, add frosting or some candy to look like feet and there you go.

Deerfield's Bakery will make any design

You can always blow up a pic of a parakeet to your desired cake size, put a couple of square cakes against each other, then use your printout as a template to cut the cake into a parakeet shape.

Hi what about a cake with a parakeet on it ?good luck

Here is the link for a bird cake mold. It is not a parakeet, but it may help in the crafting:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.chefdep...