Cookie Crown Cake

We had a Relief Society birthday party last night, and there was a cake decorating contest. When it was first announced, I knew right away that I wanted to make a cake with my incredibly creative mom. Since I don't really have cake decorating skills (really, none), I searched online to find something fun and different that just about anyone could do. This is the cake I found. My mom made the cake itself (which was a scrumptious carrot cake) and then brought it over to decorate together. We found the template provided in the recipe was a little too small, so we enlarged it. I also used this cookie icing for the designs on the cookies and to hold the candy on. In all other ways, we followed the instructions. The whole time we were making the cookies to go around the cake, we were thinking they looked kind of sloppy, but once they were decorated and on the cake, you really couldn't tell. It took a long time to make, but if I ever have a daughter who wants a princess party, I would do it again. It could also easily be color-coordinated to match a themed party - I can picture a cake with all pink candy on it.

We titled our cake "Daughters of a King." It got a lot of "ooohs" and "ahhs" when we brought it to Relief Society, and we ended up getting first place for appearance!

It must be mentioned that my boys had a good time decorating and eating the cast-off cookies. Ollie especially liked the steady supply of M&M's that I gave him to keep him busy while we decorated.