This cake I did for a dear friend a couple of weeks ago for her brother’s 30th birthday. Yes, I did say “30.” My husband saw the  cake and thought I’d made a mistake…”isn’t it supposed to be 3?'”  Nope. Davy was turning 30…And his sweet sis decided to surprise him with a blast from his past: the beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

The cake is a 10-inch 2-layer vanilla bean cake with peanut butter mousse filling and frosted with creamy vanilla-bean butter cream.  I used a large star tip to do the ombre green “puffs” around the outside of the cake, which I thought gave it a kind of “reptilian” feel.

The TMNT topper is made from homemade marshmallow fondant.  The manhole cover was made by covering a 5″ cardboard round with fondant and pressing on the brick imprints.  The TMNT logo I hand-cut from green and black fondant. The figures are also supported on a cardboard round in order for the topper to be lifted off in one piece before serving.  The hardest part was getting the somewhat heavy manhole cover to stand up and survive transport without ripping out of the cake. This took some engineering and lots of trial and error, but I think it was successful in the end.  It was a fun cake to make for a good friend!  Hope you had a great birthday, Davy!!