Garrett and his cake!
Let me begin by saying I dread Boy Scouts. I have always felt (and maybe I am wrong) that a mom has way more work to do in scouting than the Activity Days/Young Women program. They are both a lot of work for the individual, but I feel that that mom does more of the work for her scout than for her YW. I also come from a family of 5 girls and 1 boy. I am way better at dance, sewing, crafting, cooking, etc than I am at whatever-the-heck-scouts-do. Because Garrett is turning 8 this year (though not until November), he was invited to the Blue and Gold dinner. Every scout (or scout-to-be) was supposed to bring a cake. I thought, "Well that is a lot of cake but no big deal." Then, I find out that the scout is supposed to help make the cake. Then I thought, "...and they want it to be edible and appealing on the eyes?!"
I did a google search for ideas. Lots of moms just made a cake and had their boys put plastic toy figures on top. Others, it was obvious that the scouts had nothing to do with the cakes. I adapted this cake from one of the latter so it would look nice but Garrett could do it.
We made a standard chocolate box cake (must be easy when kids are helping!) but I added cinnamon to it. ( I am totally into chocolate cinnamon lately.) I made the icing and iced the cake and did the shell border. Garrett made the camp fire, tent, the kid in the sleeping bag (he even made sure he had a pillow) and the marshmallow border. (Seeing as he has not earned his fire safety merit badge, I 'roasted' the marshmallows with my kitchen burner thingy.) He and I did the tree together (He was having trouble making the frosting stick to the ice cream cone so I took over.) He was so pleased with the result and it tasted yummy too!
