Fireman Graduation Cake

Last year, The Husband graduated from the Fire Academy and the day of his final exam also happened to be Cinco de Mayo.. and a Saturday. The Husband loves Mexican food, so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to have a big party.

I also wanted to surprise him, and it was a little difficult to get everything ready behind his back, but all the extra cooking I did was easy to chalk up to "the chili cookoff at work" .. (in hindsight, I should've have planned those a day apart, but it was a good excuse). I also had to hide the big cake and decorate it in secret. Luckily, he was busy getting ready for his final fireman stuff and with work.

He sorta invited all the firemen in his class over for a party the same day, but I was able to secretly talk to one of them and they helped me get The Husband out of the house for a few hours, while everyone else got into position for the big surprise - and it ended up working out great!

For the cake, I wanted to create a fire scene. I made the buildings out of cardboard, and found the exact kind of brick (fire house) and siding (house), and roof textures that I wanted online, patched it together in PhotoShop, and then printed it out so I could glue it onto the cardboard walls. I also found the windows and doors I wanted by searching google for the exact look I was going for, and cutting those out. I even went on the Fire Department website to which The Husband had accepted a volunteer position, and cut out their emblem and made a cute little flag, and labeled the firehouse with his station number/name. The fire/flames were also just photos that I printed and cut out. Details, details, details! My favorite.

Here are some snipits from the photoshop'd images I used

The firemen and truck came as a cake-decor set, so that was all taken care of.

I used some cotton balls to simulate smoke for the burning house, and the other items I purchased from the cake supply store or online were little axes and flags, which I loved!

This was my first cake that I decorated, the one that started my interest in the whole realm of cake decorating. My mom came down to show me a few tricks, which weren't hard - the grass tip for all that grass, and just a simple border. I made a chocolate mocha buttercream filling, and used basic white buttercream frosting for everything else.

Yes, it is pretty convenient when your house is on fire and the only road in town leads from the fire station directly to your house. These people have it made!!