Crazy Styles on Birthday Cakes

Crazy styles on birthday cakes can make a celebration an event to remember. As the central focus of most birthday parties, birthday cakes can represent the special interests of the birthday celebrant or tie in to the theme of the birthday party itself. Consider unusual shapes, like burgers or mountains or go wild with designs like zebra stripes and cheetah spots. You can even add edible figurines or special finishing touches by air-brushing. Before settling on a theme and design, take into consideration how many people the cake should serve, the location of the party and whether or not the cake will need to be transported. Add this to my Recipe Box.

Burger and Fries

Suitable for kids and adults alike, a "burger and fries" cake has a whimsical feel and room for representing a variety of flavors. Begin with a yellow or white sponge cake for the burger "buns," domed at the top and then covered with cream-colored fondant or frosted white and airbrushed with graduated shades of light brown food coloring. Top with sesame seeds. For the meat patty, use a chocolate, devil's food or spice cake layer piped with dark chocolate frosting. For toppings, use yellow rolled fondant squares for cheese and ruffle-sliced green fondant for pickle slices. For fries, slice pound cake into slivers and situate beside a puddle of strawberry jam "ketchup."

Big Belly

Perfect for the birthday of a mother-to-be, a big belly makes for a fun and unusual crazy style on a birthday cake. Start with two frosted round cake layers with the top layer sporting a domed top. Situate two extra large frosted cupcakes at the front of the "belly" portion of the cake and drape all three cakes with a layer of pastel fondant to represent a maternity dress. Cut the fondant to shape and add a neckline, if desired. Embellish the dress with edible nonpareils or a fondant ribbon. This same technique can be modified into a "beer belly" cake for a brew-loving guy.

Topsy Turvey

An eclectic abstract cake, a topsy-turvy cake is a compilation of multiple cake layers set at odd angles on a multi-tiered cake stand. If you can't find an adjustable tier to create the angles for you, simply slice the cake layers at angles, frost and cover with fondant or modeling chocolate. This cake takes on an extra crazy style when each cake layer features a different color or pattern. Consider animal prints made from fondant, airbrushed tie-dye colors or large fondant polka dots in contrasting shades.

Jungle Paradise

For an extra wild party theme, take cake decorating to the jungle by creating a four-tiered frosted cake in your choice of flavors. Allow the frosted cake to sit in the freezer for an hour and then carefully "carve" out the front center section of the cake. Cover the entire cake in green fondant and then add a ribbon of blue fondant down the center of the carved section to create a jungle mountain waterfall. Add candy rocks to the bottom of the falls and add modeling chocolate-carved jungle animals, or plastic figurine animals, to the various tiers. Purchase paper palm trees and add for a finishing touch.