A Quick Birthday Cake

October was a crazy month in our house. It was an endless 31 days of colds, dr's appointments, expected and unexpected traveling, and a surgery for my husband!

Our daughter had her birthday a week ago and had requested a Dora birthday cake. She had talked about this cake all month and I had great plans to make a fabulous fondant cake of Dora's adorable round face.

But then my grandfather passed away and I decided to travel the 3,000 miles back across the US (by plane of course) to the funeral. The funeral was on my daughter's birthday so we had to celebrate a few days early.

So all fondant plans went out the window and I made a cake from a box and slapped on some store bought frosting (not my favorite - a fab homemade butter cream recipe can be found here).

Then I got to decorating by cutting Dora out of a fruit snacks box and sticking her in the cake along with some fake flowers.  To finish out the look I took some green paper and cut it into grass to decorate the bottom of the cake.

She was thrilled with the result and happy to have her Dora cake for her 3rd birthday!

So next time you are in a jam like I was just look in your cupboards and toy box to find your cake topper decorations!