60th Birthday!

My father-in-law is hilarious! He makes me laugh all the time. He's a wonderful grandpa to our kids and I feel so blessed to have him such a big part of our lives. I couldn't ask for a better father-in-law. One of the things that I love about him is that he is always willing to eat the things I make, so since his 60th birthday is coming up, I was thrilled to be able to make him a cake. He loves to sail, so that was an easy theme to go with. Here's the result:

I was quite happy with the results even though I had a few issues. I tried out some new recipes for both cake and frosting and the first cake I made was a disaster so I ended up making three seperate cakes (spice on top and chocolate on the bottom). The spice cake had a fabulous cream cheese frosting that worked perfectly. For the chocolate cake, I used a chocolate butter cream frosting that tasted amazing, but didn't hold up well under the fondant, hence the lumpiness around the bottom. Oh well. It really tasted great and that's important, too, right? The sailboat was my crowning achievement. I made it out of Rice Krispie treats, covered in buttercream and then fondant. I was so pleased with my first attempt at modeling something. I also made my own fondant for the first time and was amazed at how easy it was to do and how much better it tasted. I still won't eat the fondant on my cakes, but it does taste better overall. We ate the cake at my father-in-law's birthday party with a bunch of his brothers and sisters and such at the restaurant in the Bass Pro Shop and it was a big hit. Looked good and tasted good! My only other issue is that it looks more suited to a little boy birthday than a 60 year old man birthday, but oh well, that's just how my mind works, I guess.