Doug’s birthday is on Christmas Day and I had fun this year with his cake. All this watching Cake Boss is paying off! Of course, it would be great if I learned to take pictures while I made the cake. Oh well, we’ll muddle through.

This is the finished product. Maybe a cute cake isn’t so appropriate for a man, but again, oh well.

Start with a batter bowl cake. Either grease & flour an 8 cup batter bowl or spray with cooking spray. Mix one box of cake mix according to the directions on the package. Increase baking time to 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Frost with a layer of white frosting. Cut off the bottom third of two cake doughnuts. Use frosting to attach them to the cake and to each other. Frost with white frosting. Mix some frosting with blue food coloring. Pipe on the lines with a #3 tip. Mix some green, red and yellow frosting. With the green and a #3 tip, pipe the string of lights. Using the same tip, pipe on the red and yellow lights. I also did blue and green, but they didn’t show up very well.

 For the penguins, I used some of our peanut butter “yule log” mixture – it’s peanut butter, coconut, rice krispies, nuts, butter and powdered sugar. Let me know if you want the recipe. It is yummy. Otherwise, you can use rice krispie treats. Form it into an egg shape, then work on shaping the head. I added the wings separately, using a small, flat piece of the “log” mixture. I then drizzled chocolate over them, piped on the white belly and eye, the blue inner eye and mixed orange frosting to pipe the beak. By base is simply a pizza pan covered with foil. I spread a thin layer of frosting and sprinkled on the coconut for the snow. Then I set the penguins on and actually piped their feet on the base.

All in all, it didn’t take me that long and I love the results! My family was duly impressed.