My little boy turns 2! and Elmo....

Thats right, my chubby cheeked, mischeivous little boy has officially turned into a toddler! He is now 2! how did that happen? where did those 2 years go?

I decided to really challenge myself this year, I was going to make Elmo cookies , instead of goodie bags, an Elmo cake as well as Elmo cup cakes. It didn't quite happen the way I planned...

I found a Red Velvet cake recipe on joy of baking , I have always been intrigued by the ruby red luscious look of this type of cake.
My first two cake layers looked great! but then to my horror when I tried to move one, it just fell apart! I scraped up all remnants and put in a bowl...I had an idea...(more on that later!)
I made another two layers, dis regarding the fact that it was 2am, the cupcakes could wait till the next day.
Awaking nice and early and running on very little sleep, I managed to get the cupcakes made (with a little help from Master J, who gave his seal of approval when my back was turned and nabbed as many as he could fit in his chubby little hands ) then whipped up the butter cream, I had already abandoned any hope of doing Elmo faces on the cupcakes, I decided to just go with the same colour scheme.
I made up a heap of number 2 5cm biscuits to go as cupcake toppers and iced them in red and black.
My elmo biscuits had turned out really well, I was ever so pleased with them! Had them done and packaged and put away, then I returned to the cake and cupcakes.

Twas the night before the party, pulled out my buttercream and started tinting it, I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do with the cake, ended up being 3 layers of red velvet (and boy, was it RED!) with vanilla buttercream between layers, iced allover with buttercream then I piped on elmos's face and all the rest.

and heres my finished cake! oh, I also used an edible image strip around the sides..
I was very impressed, seeing as it was my first go at doing something like that!
the cupcakes I was and am still rather "meh" about, but heres a pic anyway..

now for the awesomeness...! remember that cake that crumbled? I stuck it in the fridge out of the way while doing all the above, then after finishing all that I took a leaf out of Bakerella's blog, and made some red velvet cake pops!
Being in Australia, I don't think we have "cream cheese frosting in a can" so I improvised with a block of Philly and icing sugar, mixed it all in with the cake crumbs and fashioned balls, stuck them on a stick, then dipped in melted white chocolate...can I just say YUM!!

I think you can see from the pic, just how RED they were!
they didn't last long on the day, everyone wanted one (or two!)
so all up it was a success, I am sure Jbaby had a great day, even I did, no stressing out, all was prepared beforehand and didn't cost me a fortune!
and heres one of Jbaby enjoying his birthday cake!

mmmm, red deliciousness!