Dabbling in Decorating: Jeep Cake

During our Thanksgiving visit to Chicago, we had the privilege of celebrating my cousin Ethan's 20th birthday as a family. While other family members were still recovering from Thursday's feast and Friday's shopping, my Aunt Amy woke early on Saturday to begin work on my cousin's birthday cake.

A yellow cake with Great Grandma's famous chocolate icing is the tradition, but this year's cake had a special twist: a Jeep topper to let my cousin know he'd be getting the Jeep he'd had his heart set on.

Since Ethan is helping to pay for his new wheels, he'd already figured out the surprise - which meant we wanted the cake to be extra special. The layers were already baked and two of them already iced when we decided to surprise Ethan with an creative cake. Instead of a Jeep atop a round layer cake, we created a chocolate-covered off road landscape! 

My aunt and I  - both dedicated dessert lovers - put our heads together for a few minutes, and came up with a great design that was easy to put together and oh-so-delicious. Great Grandma's Chocolate Icing provided the perfect texture for tire tracks and we shaped some boulders from leftover icing, thickened with more powdered sugar and dusted with cocoa powder. Naturally brown German rock sugar simulated pebbles and smaller rocks.

I'm a decent baker, but a cake decorator I am not, so I was thrilled with the finished product - and I think Ethan and his friends were, too. The only thing better than seeing his reaction? Digging in!

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