More Events, Finishing with a Labyrinth Cake

We had such a crazy busy week I thought I missed a couple of weeks of posting. It always seems we pack as many life events as possible into May. The week that began with a birthday/graduation had a Confirmation in the middle and a 20th birthday celebration at the end. 

The Confirmation was very nice. Marina sponsored her little sister, which is good, because she is a calming presence and my youngest was completely panicked. I'm not quite sure why this got scheduled on a weekday night at the height of rush hour. Maybe it was a way to control the crowd. At any rate, it was a nice ceremony, and we capped off the night by ordering Chinese food and relaxing among Marina's boxes and bags in the living room. Did I mention I have a dorm room in my living room again?

My girls with our parish priests and the grandparents

By the end of the week I was really beat, but my son was turning 20. I always try to make his day special because it is hard to be a middle child and the last birthday in a month of birthdays. He gave me an interesting challenge, as he usually does. I had done some prep work the week before and was really happy with how the cake turned out. He wanted a tribute to David Bowie and we are all fans of Labyrinth, so....

Click to enlarge, it's worth it.

I want everyone to enjoy the view from the back. I worked hard on that hair.

 He asked for Jareth on his throne. If that wasn't too hard. And he would totally understand if I couldn't do it. As usual, I took that as a challenge. And after the Mad Tea Party cake, the wheels already began turning on how I could create armature out of shortbread cookies. The cake base and the throne seat and turrets are my basic buttermilk chocolate cake. The top of the throne, the stones around the edge and Jareth's body are made from Scotch shortbread. The throne supports are chocolate covered pretzels. I used a buttercream frosting, chocolate buttercream, and plain old melted chocolate to decorate the cake. I had trouble with the maze design at first, so I'm not too happy with the floor. It took half the cake before I got the hang of how to make it maze-like. 

I baked Jareth's limbs, head, and torso separately and built him up with frosting and chocolate. His head is actually flat except for the nose, the rest is hair frosting, which I think came out fabulous. If I did this again I would probably make his crystal a ball instead of a flat cookie. It was so small it probably would have baked fine, and it would have had a better effect.

We all wore masks for the celebration to complete the theme!

My son made his own mask. All others are Marina's creations.

The cake looked good lit up.

In the end, Jareth lost his head. Just like a goblin king.