At work we are going to be having a mexico themed party and i am in charge of the cake. My problem is, for the life of me I cannot think of anything really fun or amazing to do. Please Help!!

I am doing the very same themed cake for a customer on Monday..check back then in the galleries and see if any ideas will help!!


Laurel

gallery results: mexican themed cakes

How about a sombrero? A dome cake resting on a fondant brim, all decorated and festive.

It could be a mexican flag or a pyramid or a sombrero.

there is a cake from wilton with a mexican theme... here is the link and the picture:

http://www.wilton.com/recipes/recipesandprojects/bday/fiestamargarita.cfm

What about a Mexican holding on to a tequila bottle for dear life. Let me see if I can Make this more detailed. Have a huge tequila bottle and a man with his huge hat and pancho laying on top of it either passed out or if it is standing up ( the bottle) the man would be hanging from it in mid air. If it is standing up the bottle has to be 5 times bigger than the man. And you can add little details of peppers and tacos and all the Mexican stuff with it. Being a Mexican myself cant wait to see it. LOL. Oh wait what about Pedro from Napolean Dynamite. That would be great. hahahaha.

How about a colorful "pinata" cake ? That would be amazing!!

There was a cake a few months ago in Mailbox News (I think)...someone did one gigantic taco laying on it's side. It was soooo cool.

There were even some fondant nachos and a small cake decorated as a bowl with "salsa" in it.

Good luck!!

ok...a bit of a wacko thought.

but any of you how have ever driven down I-95 on the east coast through NC/SC I sure know of ---

PEDRO and South of the Border.

could do one of the (in)famous bill boards!

I did one last weekend. It is the chili pepper cake in my photos. Quick and easy, but it made an impression.

Forgive me if this idea is in the galleries already - I didnt look- but I think a sheet cake totally covered in a mexican blanket complete with fringe would look AMAZING. Make it Fondant or MMF I guess, some really brilliant colours and a bit crumpled but covering the whole cake. and then cacti or something around the sides. or the blanket draped down to the cakeboard

here are some photos of mexican blankets under yahoo image search 'mexican blanket' http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=mexican+blanket&fr=FP-tab-img-t-t500&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8

Another idea, even more involved, make the cake the shape of Mexico (carved) and then make the top a mexican blanket MMF or Fondant. Even more interesting than a current map if you actually FBCT'd the map on top, would be to find an older one from say last century, an antique looking one. Or even make a 3D map (geographical) (egads you could do that with any country, that would be a blast), how they have the raised parts for the mountains and well ok I'm probably going way out in left field there labour-wise LOL

More ideas: to break away from the stereotype (no offense )of tacos and sombreros.

a mexican pyramid cake would be fun to do. (the folks made me walk up when I was 3, damnit ) lol

FBCT or even 3D display of a Mariachi band

The architecture, colonial and pueblo style houses are spectacular. That could be a fun icing to make LOL (for instance a house cake- probably couldnt do the house cake pan, somehow do complete with arches and stucco, either the whole cake or a house on sheet cake with a garden with brush palms and a nice garden.

So many aspects to draw from, the Spanish colonial influence, the Mayans, Aztecs, Toltec - some of that art would be WOW to recreate either 3D or FBCT. (easy enough to google/yahoo search art/architecture from any of those cultures and get some ideas)

There are also some fabulously colourful costumes worn for dancing and events, a dress would be fun to make (doll cake maybe) (or the mariachi costumes, as mentioned earlier- think the movie Three Amigos LOL)

ok I think that's all I can come up with for now. Good luck!

You can subscribe to Mailbox News through the American Cake Decorating website. (www.americancakedecorating.com).

And for the Mexican cake.. Nachos! This is one I did a while back for a Mexican themed party and it went over extremely well. People actually thought it was a real plate of nachos up until the point they started to pick up the chips!

Ok, here goes with the nacho cake. I'm going to try to explain it as best I can, but if anything still needs clarification please let me know.

Just to give you an idea of size, the plate the cake is on in the photo is actually a turkey platter, so it's pretty big. I actually made the nachos by coloring MMF a dark yellow color (you can use yellow and a small bit of brown also) and kneaded in some crushed Oreo cookies to give more of a tortilla chip texture. I was running really short on time and didn't have time to let the fondant harden on its own, so I rolled it out and coated one side of it with candy melts before cutting it into triangles. Then I formed them into random "tortilla" shapes by laying some over the rolling pin, propping others up with the edges bent, etc. In hindsight I would have started a few days ahead of time so the MMF could harden on it's own without needing the candy coating on the back to hold keep the shape. for the cake itself I made two 9-inch rounds and then trimming two sides down so they were more oval shaped and fit the plate better. I put one layer on the plate and covered it with a layer of chocolate frosting, then positioned some of the nachos around the outer edge of the cake layer. For the second cake, I torted it in half and only ended up using one of the parts because it was too high if I'd used the whole thing. So I used half of the second 9-in. round and trimmed it into oval shape like the first and put it in place. Then I put another layer of chocolate frosting on and more nacho chips around the perimeter of the cake. I also crumbled up the leftover cake shavings and mixed them with chocolate frosting and added a layer of that onto the top cake layer to give the texture of meat.

That's it for the cake itself, the rest is just embellishment and is really easy. For the lettuce I lightly tinted coconut flakes with green food coloring and spread them on. (Since you only see the "lettuce" that's around the edges, I actually only put it on this part and not in the middle so I wouldn't have to use as much. I just made an oval ring of coconut if that makes sense.) Then for the cheese I colored a package of white candy melts yellow and poured them into a dish lined with cling wrap and let it harden into a block. Then I shredded it on a regular food/cheese grater to get the little shavings and spread it on top of the cake.

The guacamole is buttercream tinted with moss green coloring, and the sour cream is just pure buttercream with no coloring. I just put big spoonfulls on top like you would do real sour cream and guacamole. The olives are black MMF that I cut little strips of, rolled into "tubes" and connected the ends to form circles. And lastly, the tomatoes (or peppers, whichever they look more like LOL) are red MMF cut into cubes and indented with the tines of a fork.

And there you go.. Nachos!

wow!

thanks for the explanation!!!!

(and here I thought you took cheerios and gave them a bath in black food dye for the olives!)

love the idea of grating the "cheese" candy melts.

wow is right. that cake is amazing! I don't like mexican food but am dying to make that one!!! thanks for the directions

Thank you all so much for your posts. I am definatly going to attempt the plate of nachos. I love it!

Thanks guys for the compliments! That was my first theme cake and was actually my husband's idea after my other ideas fell through. So kudos to him