For the Love of Books: Bake a Book Cake
I have always loved books. Many of my favorite moments with my children are with us cuddled up reading a story. Our reading rituals began when the children were infants and I would snuggle them close in the rocking chair and read classic stories like Goodnight Moon and Guess How Much I Love You. As my children grow older I continually look for fun ways to encourage reading.
Last year when my daughter was in kindergarten her class celebrated Reading Week. One night we were surfing the internet together looking for birthday cake ideas when we found instructions for a book shaped cake. We decided to ask her teacher if we could make one for the class. The teacher happily agreed so right away we started brainstorming ideas.
We decided to use the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle as our inspiration. We wanted a book with fun illustrations that would be easily recognizable to the children. The cake was made by baking a 9×13 sheet cake and carving a “V” notch in the middle to give the appearance of an open book. I used white frosting as my backdrop, food coloring for the illustrations and m&m candies for decoration. I freehanded the illustrations by dropping food coloring on the frosting and spreading it with a toothpick (you can also make a tie-dye effect with this method). The kids helped me spread with toothpicks to fill in the design.
It was no surprise that the cake was a hit with the kids. I hope to make our book cake an annual tradition.
November 29th, 2007 at 11:14 pm
I LOVE this idea and I can’t wait until my daughter is old enough to bake with me to try it out. This is a scrumptious way to encourage literacy.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:57 am
Thanks Stephanie, I hope the teachers allow me to do this every year. It was so much fun.
March 20th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
[...] Caterpillar: board book & CD cake based on the picture book by Eric Carle. I wrote about it here. I used the same technique for both cakes - white frosting “painted” with food [...]