The most challenging time of the year for any cake maker isn’t Christmas or Easter. It’s their own kid’s birthday.

X-Ray has been planning his 6th bespoke birthday cake literally from the day after his last one (see his 5th birthday cake here)…for the whole year. His wish list was LONG. We had a few plot twists in themes too. We started with Ninjago, swerved into Sonic, then it got truly unhinged with a hybrid Ninjago–Sonic situation, at which point I gently hit the brakes. Thankfully, right then the new Super Mario Bros movie came out and it was all X-Ray could talk about. He was officially hooked on everything Mario, which suited me just fine because I also happen to love everything Mario – and we even have our own Mario birthday cake on the menu.

I remember playing Mario Kart as a kid on my Nintendo games console. Yoshi  was always my favourite, who sadly doesn’t get much screen time in the film, but I was determined to sneak him onto X-Ray’s cake. Because if I’m going to spend days of blood, sweat and tears on this one cake I don’t even get paid for, there’s got to be something in it for me too.

X-Ray decided on Mario and Luigi coming out of pipes. With a mystery box. And mushrooms. And the stars with eyes. Yup, cool. “But Mummy, also Bowser!” Yeah okay…bit much…but fine. Let’s talk about the flavours though now. Chocolate? Vanilla? Cookies & Cream? Red Velvet?

“Mint choc chip, Mummy, I love it.” Eurghhhhhh.

I started on the fondant modelling two weeks before his birthday, spreading the work out and squeezing pieces in between our customer orders. Mario and Luigi in pipes were fun to make. I actually made Mario with X-Ray in the bakery, which was a really sweet few hours together – him chattering away about power-ups while I tried not to glue Mario’s nose on upside down. Then I embarked on Yoshi, mushrooms, stars and the Mystery Box of cake.

Two nights before the big day, I decided it was time to tackle Bowser. After three hours of my life spent rolling the tiniest spikes known to man, I was so frustrated I took it out on my poor, headless Bowser and binned the whole thing. Bowser just wasn’t bowsering. Maybe I was tired, stressed, or very possibly both. Either way, we were going to have to do without Bowser and wing it with the rest the next day.

As I vaguely planned how to decorate this Super Mario cake with all these models, I realised there was no way they could all fit on a single-tier cake. We also couldn’t do a multi-tier because the boot of our car couldn’t take it all the way to Surrey. So it would have to be a cakescape. More work, yes, but it meant I could include a delicious Mario primary-coloured rainbow cake because I just could not face feeding all our guests X-Ray’s mint choc chip choice. And because I’m extra, we turned it into a piñata rainbow cake too.

Cakescapes are gorgeous because you can add so many varied elements to them. It’s a visual feast. Everywhere you look, there’s something new and interesting and it’s a real talking point. It’s also a cake you’re not going to forget anytime soon. When creating a cakescape, it’s better to overestimate how much décor you’ll need and budget for that. A barren cakescape looks sad, and you won’t really know it’s barren until you’re mid-decorating…by which time it might be too late to make and add anything new.

Since we were now without Bowser, I had to make something to distract X-Ray and fill the void. On a whim, I made little piranha plants. And dare I say it, they ended up being my favourite details on the whole cake.

For X-Ray’s toothpaste-flavoured – sorry, mint choc chip – cake, I made a dark chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream and etched every single line for the brick effect by hand. My back broke over this. I then assembled the 6” rainbow piñata cake with the Mario figurine and started building the cakescape on a large cake board.

This is when it gets properly fun. Adding all the elements in – Yoshi, Luigi, the mushrooms, mystery box, stars and piranha plants – they just kept popping out of the cake like little scene-stealers. Every time I make a new cakescape, I feel like it’s my new favourite.

How did X-Ray like it on the day? Luckily, he didn’t notice Bowser was missing at all, despite inspecting the cake for a good 15–20 minutes, buzzing with excitement.

What was even better? He said, “Mummy, I think mint choc chip is better as an ice cream.”

Phew.

I hope you enjoyed following the making of this Super Mario cake as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Love,
Reshmi xoxo

If this has you plotting your own little gamer’s party, our children’s birthday cakes are baked to order, hand-decorated with all their favourite characters and delivered straight to your celebration – no Bowser spikes required.