Let's Bake a Movie: Napoleon Dynamite Cake

Even though my birthday is actually July 23, I decided to have my birthday party last week since all of my friends could be there. I've been thinking about this party for a long time now. I've known for awhile I wanted to have a Napoleon Dynamite birthday party because, let's face it, it's pretty much the best movie of all time. Anyway, last week I made a Summer Wheatley pinata that I showed you guys in an earlier post, and on Saturday, me and my mom made a Pedro (hearts) Summer cake. I'll show you how we did it.

I've had a carrot cake for my birthday for years now. It's just a little tradition that I think is pretty neat. So, to make a really easy carrot cake, here's what you do.

For the cake, you'll need:
-2 boxes of Spice Cake mix
-can of sliced carrots, drained
-2 cups of pineapple juice, divided
-and whatever the back of the cake mix says to add (eggs, oil)
(Instead of adding water to our cake mix like it says to do on the back of the boxes, we used the pineapple juice.)

For the cream cheese icing, you'll need:
-8 oz. cream cheese
-1 1/2 bags powdered sugar
-2 tablespoons butter
-1 teaspoon vanilla
(or you can use your own frosting recipe!)

First, drain your can of carrots and mix them in a blender with one cup of the pineapple juice.
Mix the rest of the ingredients in a bowl. Combine the two and mix until well combined.

Bake in three separate cake pans and let cool completely.

Cut the tops of the cakes off, so you're left with a flat surface.

Make the frosting by adding powdered sugar slowly. I think we used about 1 1/2 bags. It needs to be really thick so it doesn't get all gloopy! That's not a word.

Frost one cake, add another on top, frost another cake, put another on top. So tall!

Frost the rest of the cake and add some of that fancy piping witchcraft-ness to the top and bottom of the cake. My mom used one of those magic frosting tipper things. Wow, I really need to work on my vocabulary. Then we used a toothpick to make sure "Pedro <3's Summer" would fit on the cake.

Make the words with some of that gel icing that comes in a little tube, or you can make your own icing by adding a few drops of red food coloring to your previous cream cheese frosting. Either way works!

Then you have to add sprinkles! Here's me with my Deb side-ponytail and a pink polo shirt.

Pretty awesome, right? Right?! I had a great time this past weekend and the cake was absolutely delicious. One of my friends even said, "it's a rare occasion when the cake is as good as the icing!" My mom sure knows how to make cakes. :)
Have a great week everyone!
Love, Liz