Baked in Birmingham

Aye, matey! This pirate birthday cake is chocolate with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream and decorated with a fondant Jolly Rogers and treasure map. Shiver me timbers! (Insert any further necessary pirate jargon here).

Decorated, 3-layer, 6″ birthday cake feeds approximately 5-8 people and pricing begins at $25.

We had a huge celebration for Dad’s 60th this past weekend. The whole family came in town to enjoy an afternoon full of funny old pictures, Jim n Nicks bbq, and of course…cake! I’ve spent the last few weeks working on all the little pieces that made up Dad’s cake. I wanted to try to encompass as much of his life in gumpaste that I possibly could. It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself!

Dad celebrated his 35th anniversary as an accountant with AmSouth/Regions just two days before his birthday, so I did an old-school calculator complete with tape, his birthday on the display screen, and his first name, Raybon (everyone calls him Wayne though) as the logo. There is also a “No. 60″ pencil (that broke about into three pieces, boo) and a purple and gold ribbon-clad diploma from the University of Montevallo.

This is our little family dog Joey. He’s the dachshund that our parents got us the summer my mom went to back to school to get her masters back in 1994. I guess they felt guilty for abandoning their children for 3 months, so Joey is what we got to ease the pain. And let me tell you, Joey was the 4th child. The day he died we all went out for a big family dinner and we laughed and cried and reminisced about our beloved Joey. Today, Joey is an angel in heaven, as the figure clearly represents.

Dad was a military brat growing up, taking him allover the world to live. So in various shades of green I cut out each state and country he’s lived in. And yes, Panama is supposed to be in two parts! It’s not broken, Mom. There’s this little thing called the Panama Canal that goes through it. Geez.

Dad was in the Navy and served in Vietnam from 1967-1969. His dog tags have his nickname, “3 Beers Boody” etched into them, because he drank the first beer, dropped the second one, and gave the third one away. So he says. I painted the tags and the rope on the anchor with shimmery powder to make the sheen. Ooh la la.

So this was an ode to one of the biggest inside joke in the Boody family. Whenever you ask Dad what he wants for Christmas, he just says, in all seriousness, that all he wants is to see the smiles on our faces on Christmas morning. Although sometimes, he just wants socks and underwear. I think the socks and Christmas box turned out darn cute.

And perched right on top is dad in his mid-life mobile. There’s a young, brunette Wayne Boody at the wheel and his best friend, our new little dachshund, Scout, in the passenger’s seat.

Happy birthday, Daddy! I love you!