Birthday cakes

My son's 7th Birthday is coming up in October, so last week we asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday.  We've always given him the option of doing something special with us, or a birthday party with his daycare/school friends.  So far he has chosen to do something special with us.  This year he has made the same choice.  Although before he answered that question, he answered a question that wasn't even asked yet.  He piped up and emphatically stated he wanted a Batman cake this year.  Today we asked him about it to make sure he wasn't going to change his mind.  Still Batman.  He has said he wants the Batman image on the cake, and not just the Batman symbol.  Darn it.  The Batman symbol would've been easy and sure to turn out awesome.  So after doing research, I've found there are not really any designs that lend themselves to my skill set (I don't do fondant, not yet anyway, and this is not the time to start).  I've decided to use a Wilton cake pan, the kind you decorate by piping hundreds of little stars onto it.  I've avoided it as long as I could.  Now is the time to try it.  The cake pan was discontinued in 1989, so I had to buy one off eBay.  This is what it looks like:

 Hopefully it turns out well.  We'll have to see.  Admittedly, I may have set the standard a bit high with last year's cake.  He asked for Spiderman.  I found some great tutorials online for a simple Spiderman face design.  My only real challenge was getting the Red color icing deep enough for my liking.  Once I solved that problem, the rest was fairly easy.  Here is how it turned out:


Alex's 6th B-day Spiderman cake

For next year I may need to figure out what is doable for me and start planting the idea in his head a little earlier.

Who knows, I may find I really like the Wilton shaped cake with all the piped stars on it.  Maybe I'll find an occasion to finally try out fondant.