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.