Mad Scientist Cake

When we shared with you the Mad Scientist Party we put together in our last post, and mentioned the cake we had made, we thought that today we would share with you how we made it! As we mentioned before, we were inspired by this cake, but needed to make it bigger. Here's how we did it:

What you need:

• 2 boxes cake mix (we use red velvet to make our cake extra icky-looking)
  
• metal bowl
• 9x13 cake pan
• 2 cans vanilla frosting
• food coloring
• various candy

We took the first box of cake mix and made the batter according to the packages instructions. Then we sprayed the bowl with non-stick cooking spray, and scooped about 2 1/2 cups of batter into it (we made cupcakes with the leftover batter). We then baked it in the oven for about 55 minutes (you know it's done when a toothpick inserted in teh center comes out clean). Once it's finished backing, remove it form teh oven and let it sit for about 10 minutes before removing it form teh bowl. and letting it cool completely.
When it is completely cooled you are ready to frost! mix a few drops of food coloring into 1 can of your frosting (we used black food coloring to make our brain gray). We put our frosting into a zip-lock bag, cut off a corner, and squeezed our frosting onto our cake in s-shaped squiggles. Then ta-da! You've got a brain cake!If you'd like to have more cake to feed your guests, mix up that second batch of cake batter, pour it into your 9x13 pan, and bake it according to the instructions on the box. Once it is finished baking and had cooled completely, youc an mix up the second can of frosting with more food coloring (again we used gray). We then decoated the cake to look like a machine, using candy and frosting to make buttons and knobs. We then took some red licorice whips to make wires to connect the brain to our machine, just a like a mad scientist should!This was a super-easy cake to make, but really impressed the kids (and adults!)