Enter the Creeper

This year's birthday cake was a no-brainer. The boys are obsessed with Minecraft. They play it every chance they get, odd elevator music emanating throughout the house. P eagerly devours strategy books and talks non stop about things that go right over my head. I was on board with the Star Wars obsession - I learned the character names and could appreciate the story lines. Minecraft? Despite the obvious learning aspects of building things and tapping into the creative parts of the brain and all that, it is mind numbingly boring. Maybe it's a kid thing. I don't know. Needless to say, when P's birthday approached and I asked the yearly question, "What will the cake be this year?" and he said, "A creeper" I didn't even bat an eye. Minecraft is all squares. Easy peasy. No complicated, two cake design this year. No strange colors or multiple trips to the bulk food candy section. One square, some green food coloring, and ta-da!

If only it were that simple. The amazing frosting that I discovered two years ago? It has been discontinued. There was much shaking of fists and gnashing of teeth in the frozen food aisle and on the family room couch after subsequent smart phone searches. No more cool whip frosting.

*DEAR KRAFT FOODS, IF YOU SENT THE DATA MINING HOUNDS AFTER ME AND DISCOVERED THIS BLOG, PLEASE BRING BACK THE COOL WHIP FROSTING, THANKS A BUNCH.*

Once I calmed down and realized I would have to go back to (gulp) making my own frosting, I searched for a decent vegan recipe. The boy can't tolerate dairy, so I figured if there was no cool whip frosting I might as well make something he can eat without gassing out the entire room. The recipe called for dairy free margarine, confectioner's sugar, and coconut milk. I followed the directions. Seriously. Every step. And my frosting looked like this:

Look familiar to any moms and dads out there? Like the stuff that comes out of your kid when they aren't capable of digestion? I'm guessing the margarine started to separate or something horrid like that. But it tasted okay, so I slapped it onto the inner layers and set out to make frosting batch number two.

A good little scientist, I altered one of the factors, swapping the margarine for butter (olfactories be damned!) and came out with something with a slightly better consistency but still paling in comparison to the creaminess of the cool whip frosting. That and the color was just not right.

Face in the fridge. Ah-ha! A nearly empty container of cool whip. I scraped batch number two off the cake, folded in the cool whip and added a few drops of neon green. Ta-da! Batch number three a success.

*DEAR KRAFT FOODS, NEVER MIND. I FIGURED IT OUT WITHOUT YOU. PLEASE KEEP MAKING COOL WHIP AND I WILL JUST MAKE MY OWN DANG FROSTING. THANKS FOR NOTHING. OKAY, THANKS FOR THE COOL WHIP.*

Meanwhile, the husband helped out by cutting rip rolls into squares to resemble the pixels in the video game. Remember rip rolls from last year's minion? A fabulous find. This year I was pleased to find two different shades of green, a gift from the cake fairies. For the face, I used fudge cookies, which are not quite square shaped or black, but close enough to create the desired effect.

The boy was pleased. Always the litmus test. Does the cake actually resemble the desired thing? Yes? Success.