Mets! Mets! Mets!
Monday, July 12, 2010 at 12:28PM Let me start by saying I am NOT a sports fan - not even a little bit. I seem to have lost the gene that makes me care about grown men (and women) hitting/throwing/chasing some sort of ball around a field/rink/court.
That said, my 7 yr old is a big sports fan, thanks to his sports fan father (the 3 yr old isn't that interested yet, but I'm sure his time will come), and after three years of race track cakes, decided his 7th birthday should feature his favorite baseball team, The New York Mets, and their mascot, Mr. Met.
But this wasn't a completely original idea. I made this cake a couple weeks before - totally edible (if not completely palatable) Mr. Met out of gumpaste. Cake was vanilla bean with vanilla buttercream, fondant baseball diamond.
The weather was warm and poor Mr. Met was in danger of toppling over a couple of times, and was very happy that I provided him with an extra stack of bases to keep him upright.
Since the summer was getting hotter and Mr. Met doesn't seem to respond well to hot weather (unless I was going for a "Sloppy Drunk Mr. Met" look) I "encouraged" Max to choose another type of Mr. Met cake - one that wouldn't involve lots of toothpicks and bases made out of gumpaste as props. The result was a 12" vanilla bean/vanilla buttercream Mr. Met head and hat. Fondant stripes in Mets colors on the sides of the cake.
(The NY on the hat was my favorite part of the cake!)
I realized after the fact that a real baseball doesn't have red lines underneath the stitching, but since I'm sure Max is going to request this cake a couple of more years, I'll have a chance to redeem myself:)
Finally, a friend who attended Max's party decided he also wanted a Mets cake for his birthday, but with a twist. Milo might be a bigger Mets fan than Max and his baseball party included "Milo" t-shirts in a Mets-type font for all the kids. I used that lettering and added it to the familiar Mets skyline logo and LOVE the result. Everything was cut out by hand and edible (gumpaste and fondant). Cake was 12" chocolate with chocolate buttercream.
Happy Summer!
