Freebie Cake For Teenagers--Need Cheap Ideas!
Decorating By alisoncooks Updated 15 Sep 2007 , 1:18pm by alisoncooks
I've volunteered to provide the snack for our middle-college age youth group at church (still couple of weeks away). Since I'm doing this for free, I need it to be done inexpensively (and I wasn't sure I wanted to bother with MMF). But I volunteered to get some more cake practice in....so I wanna do something cool. Thought about cupcakes (cheeseburger, popcorn..?) Need to serve 15-20 kids, plus handful of adults, so a 9x13 would also work. Any fun ideas out there? Don't wanna do something too juvenille and insult the teenagers.
Oh, I thought about doing an Etch-a-Sketch cake (9x13) with a caricature (SP?) of the youth minister "sketched" on it, but wasn't sure how I'd get MMF a nice bright glossy red.
I think the etch-a-sketch is way too young, although I like the idea of using it to sketch a caricature. But that's generally a kid's toy.
I think the hamburger cupcakes would be perfect for this! What teen/college age kid doesn't love hamburgers? And cupcakes are so easy to serve. If you want to do something really fun, add a few veggie burgers too - check out this clever twist from marthajo1 http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=868063
If you make your own fondant it won't be expensive. I made Toba's fondant today and I think it may be even less expensive to make than mmf. As far as glossy red fondant you can either start off with a chocolate fondant and add red gel color or build up your color. If you start with white fondant you need to build it up with yellow or brown depending on what color your want to end up with. To make it glossy you can polish the fondant by putting shortening on the palm of your hands and lightly rubbing on the fondant.
Yeah, I liked the burger idea, but was unsure about actually HOW to go about it (like making the "meat" section). So far, that is my top pick...I'm just not sure about the how. Also thought about a "pizza" cake...
I haven't mad the hamburger cupcakes, but here's how I would make them.
One batch of white-colored cupcakes, one batch of chocolate cupcakes, cut both batches in half and use the bottom of the chocolate ones as the meat. The white-colored ones would serve as the buns. How that helps!
OH, and I think the hamburgers are a great idea!
I made my meat from a Coca-cola cake recipe. Used a muffin tin so they would be the same size as the buns.
Yeah, I liked the burger idea, but was unsure about actually HOW to go about it (like making the "meat" section). So far, that is my top pick...I'm just not sure about the how. Also thought about a "pizza" cake...
Pizza cakes are great! I made two for my son's 14th birthday and they went down really well..not insulting at all! Fun to make too. I have one in my pics. The local Pizz Hutt gave me a couple of boxes free which helped make them really realistic, and yes they were cheap to make. Raspberry jam for the sauce, grated white chocolate cheese and you could use rolled chocolate cookie dough for the salami.
Could you do the 9x13 cake decorated like an IPOD? Every teenager through college age person I know has an IPOD or MP3 player.
There's a few cakes on this website:
http://www.theapplecollection.com/Collection/objects/cake.shtml
And I saw one on the pinkcakebox.com
Or what about some round cakes decorated like pizza? You could have different flavor cakes for different toppings. Like a strawberry cake that has pepperoni decorations, chocolate cake with veggies, and yellow cake is a cheese lovers pizza. Or Just ONE HUGE Pizza if you have a large round pan.
I haven't done the hamburger cakes yet either but I would use brownies for the meat.
I like the ipod idea. Young, but not too young. Or a laptop, but that could get expensive.
Thanks for all the great ideas. The ipod idea is cool, cause as far as serving size went, I thought a 9x13 was good. I really like the pizza ideas, but I wasn't sure how to do them to serve 20 or so people. Thought about making them more size/depth realistic by doing 2 pizzas, both single layer 9" round (don't have bigger) but since all the charts are for double layers, I didn't know how many a single would serve... Whatever I make, I'm sure they won't care...they'll just eat it. But maybe part of the fun (for me) is trying to find out just what I wanna do... 
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