birthday cake for our son - Percy Jackson and the Olympians themed

So, it's time for my bi-annual decorated birthday-cake post! Our son turned 9 last weekend and as is our tradition, I made his birthday cake in the theme he selected.

This year, he was super into Greek gods and mythology after having just finished a 5-book series called Percy Jackson and the Olympians. He wanted his cake to have a labyrinth, water and a Trident (because the main character in the series is supposed to be the son of the sea-god Poseidon), the Greek god Pan, a black pegasus, a cyclops, Percy's sword, and a "blue triangle that glows and opens the secret doorway to the labyrinth when pressed by a half-bloods hand. 

Well, that's a tall order! Here then, is the cake that he got:

I used marzepan for the sculptures, some gel icing which I dyed blue for the water, and the rest was the cream cheese icing which we've all become so fond of. The cake was two layer - Devils Food chocolate for the bottom layer, and the top layer was the delicious white cake recipe I used for his sister's rainbow cake with swirls of blue in it because there's stuff in the book series about blue food.

The labyrinth walls were made of fudge icing, and the rocks were chocolate rocks that I found at a cake decorating shop.

The boy was particularly pleased with the detail of skulls and bones scattered in the labyrinth. ;)

I learned that making a horse shape out of Marzepan is really super hard. The flower thingies were there to add stability.

ahahahah... OK I know, I know... Looks like Pan has really been letting himself go lately.

I had no idea how to make a Pan - but doesn't he look pleased with himself?

There ya go - glowing triangle. Age 9 gave us the perfect number of candles to make it happen too.

And there's the birthday boy, with sticky hair, blowing out his candles. (His hair is all funny like that because this year's party was a pie-fight in the back yard. Yes, that's right, a pie fight! Floyd bought 14 pounds of pudding and four super-sized cans of non-dairy whipped cream at the Cash and Carry and the kids made "pies" with the pudding which they ladeled onto kid-hand sized paper plates, adding some whipped cream and sprinkles on top. Then they had fun lobbing them at each other. I think the parents had as much fun watching as the kids did throwing the pies, and then we were blessed with several days of rain afterwards which helped clean up the mess on our lawn - it was a ton of fun!)