Photo Credit: Molly Beckley

“Jake, what kind of cake would you like Mommy to make you this year?” I asked my soon to be 5 year old. “Epcot, Mom.”, he replied. Beads of sweat started to form on my brow. I had made all of children’s birthday cakes every year of their lives. And when they are old enough to talk, I make them per their own requests. I had already made Jake both a pirate hat and pirate map cake in June for his birthday party with friends. I had been wondering what was stirring in that sharp little mind of his in regards to his birthday cake to be enjoyed with family. “You want me to make you an Epcot cake.” I retorted, as more of a statement than a question. “Yes, Mom, that’s what I want!”. I decided at that moment that if Jake wanted an Epcot cake, an Epcot cake he was going to get. This was going to be no easy undertaking. When most of us think of Epcot, we think of that giant silver golf ball that is Spaceship Earth. And I knew when Jake said that he wanted an Epcot Cake, what he really meant was that he wanted a Spaceship Earth cake. My son is like me in many ways, and one of these ways is that his favorite of all the Disney parks is Epcot. It is strange for a child not to have the Magic Kingdom as their favorite park, but when I was a little girl, I always felt most at home in Epcot, and Jake, a budding Imagineer, really enjoys the more educational feel of this park.

When it was time to get to work on the cake, I had to sit and think for a moment how I was going to make this happen. I sat and studied a photo of the towering “Epcot ball” that I had snapped on our Disney vacation earlier in the month. Spaceship Earth is a sphere. Could I, an amateur cake maker really pull this off? What was I going to bake the cake in? As the wheels started turning in my head, I realized that it really wasn’t as difficult as it seemed. I could bake the cake in two bowls, and put them together to form a ball. I pulled two Pyrex bowls out of the cabinet and filled them with Jake’s favorite boxed chocolate cake batter.  I also filled a square Pyrex dish with batter to use as a base. After the cakes were baked and cooled, I set to work assembling the cake. I placed the first half of the sphere on top of the square base cake, and frosted the flat top with some canned chocolate frosting. I then placed the second half of the sphere on top of the first, and voila! I had my Spaceship Earth structure!

Photo Credit: Molly Beckley

It was late at night, and not wanting to run out to the store, I only had a limited amount of confectionary sugar to make my famous buttercream icing with. I knew that I would not be able to make enough icing to “dirty ice” the cake first. If I had done this, I would have been able to fill in the small gap where the two cakes met in the middle a bit better, and create more of a smooth ball, but because of the late hour, and limited time I had left to finish the cake, I decided to go ahead and start decorating. I mixed my frosting with literally just a pin head of a drop of  Wilton’s black food coloring, which created the perfect “Spaceship Earth gray.”  I then painstakingly piped each little “pyramid” on to the cake with a star tip. This took what seemed like forever! I used whatever icing I had left to cover at least part of my base. I would have to position the uncovered part in the back! Earlier in the day I had picked up some of  Wilton’s silver “Pearl Dust” at Michael’s craft store. I felt like Tinkerbell blowing pixie dust as I emptied a dime size amount into the palm of my hand time and time again and blew it on to the cake as to try and recreate the shiny metallic appearance of Spaceship Earth. I then placed a little palm tree from one of the kids toy sets to the side of the cake. This provided a realistic looking touch.

Photo Credit: Molly Beckley

Photo Credit: Molly Beckley

My end result was not as perfect as I had originally imagined it in my head but the next morning I breathed a sigh of relief as Jake peeked into the refrigerator where the cake camped out for the night and said “Mom! It’s Epcot! You did it! Just like you said!”

Photo Credit: Jeff Beckley

Contributed by: Molly Beckley (NDM#398) Molly is a DDL Planning with Little Ones Blogger. She is also the creator of The Real Disney Mom.

Molly B. (NDM#398)

Molly is a proud mommy of three Neurotic Disney Children. Though young in age, she is a veteran Walt Disney World vacation planner. She would classify her life in two parts; on a Disney vacation, or planning one. She first visited her utopia at age 3 and could not imagine her life without it. One of her proudest moments was when her son told her that he wanted to be an Imagineer and she can’t wait until her daughter is old enough to have a favorite Disney princess. She hopes to instill a life long love for Disney in her children and any one else who is willing to have a little faith and trust!

www.therealdisneymom.wordpress.com

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