This cake was created for Ethan and Nicholas (their Mum and Dad won the charity cake auction I held to benefit our church's missions projects.) They decided to pick a joint theme for their cake, except that one wanted the Hulk and the other Spiderman! I was at somewhat of a loss, but this is what I came up with for them (with God's help!) I'm including this in quick cakes because I think this idea could be done very simply and quickly as it primarily involves plastic toys. I just chose to make it huge and more detailed with chocolate pieces and buttercream trees, etc., but you certainly wouldn't have too. I was just having so much fun playing with frosting again for the first time in months and months! I also thought that this might also help those who have requests for licensed images on their cakes. Just buy the already licensed toy products and use them in the design. You will then be selling a totally "legal" cake and not have to worry about any kind of legal repercussions. The kids seem more than thrilled with having a new toy as well!

The basic idea is to make a fun looking "terrain" of cake from whatever pans you want to use, and then cover it all with icing. I ended up using my Pampered Chef batter bowl, a 9" contour round, some mini-ball cakes, a horseshoe pan, and a few mini-loaves as well. I thought it would be more unnusual and exciting to create an undulating scene rather than a sheet cake with decorations on top. I used my Create-a-Mold gel product and one of my son's plastic toy rock piles to create a mold for the rocks that you see in the pool surround close-up and the foreground of the cake. It was then cast in grey-tinted chocolate and lustre-dusted to add colour variety. I also used my Wilton black food colour spray to add shading to the cake mountain and roadway. It was a first effort at that, and one I would definitely repeat. Much cheaper than an airbrush. This was so much fun to make. It was great to be back in the sugar arts again! Hope you like it.