My Birthday Girl's Owl Cake

It's my baby's first birthday today!  We decided to make her an owl cake because she loves it when we make the "whoo whoo" owl sound from one of her favorite books, "Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?" by Dr. Seuss.  I found these great owl cake directions from Parenting.com.

(that's the picture from the Parenting.com website)

Ingredients:

2 cakes baked in 16-oz Pyrex bowls

2 cakes baked in 1-Quart Pyrex bowls

(note: this translated to 2 boxes of yellow cake mix - we used most of the batter for the cakes, then made cupcakes with the remaining batter)

1 can chocolate frosting (16 oz)

1 cup vanilla frosting

3-4 Oreo cookies

2 Junior Mints

5 candy corns (or banana Runts if you can find them)

Mini chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Bake your cakes in the oven at the directed temp on the box.  We placed all four cakes (in the Pyrex bowls) on top of a metal cookie sheet to bake.  The smaller bowls were removed after 35 minutes - it took about 50 minutes for the larger cakes to cook through.  Let cakes cool...we baked them the night before to make sure they were ready for decorating the next morning.

2.  Shave off the rounded tops of the 2 large cakes and 1 of the small cakes.  Take the other small cake and shave about 1/2 inch off the bottom, leaving the rounded top - this one will be your top layer.  

3. Place the first large cake on a platter, shaved top facing up.  Put some chocolate icing on the top, then place the other large cake on top, shaved side facing down.  Ice on top, then place the first small cake on top of that, shaved side up.  Finally, ice on top and place the final small cake on top, rounded side facing up.  

4. Place a few wooden skewers through all 4 cakes to keep the cake sturdy. (see below)

5. Ice the owl's white tummy first with the vanilla icing.

6. Then ice the rest of the cake with the chocolate icing.

7. Pull your first Oreo apart and cut the side without the frosting in half.  These will be your owl ears.  Stick the ears into the top of the head, with the flat sides facing in, and frost over them with chocolate icing.

8. Pull two more Oreos apart.  You'll use the sides with the frosting.  Add a little vanilla frosting to your two Junior Mints and stick them on the frosted sides of each Oreo - these are your owl eyes.  Place the eyes on the head of the owl...we placed a few toothpicks under the eyes to keep them from falling down.  Add 1 candy corn for the beak (also used a toothpick underneath to hold it up), and 4 candy corns for the toes.  Place several mini chocolate chips in the vanilla icing on the belly of the owl.

9.  We decorated the platter with the extra candy corn to add some more color and iced the cupcakes (from the extra batter) orange to match our owl cake.  It turned out super cute!

Here is a picture of the adorable birthday girl with her cake.  Happy birthday Addison Leigh!