I say I tried because as the side by side will show you, I got a little lazy with the shield and just sort of said “fuck it” there at the end.

But the cake itself was yummy. I focused on making it so just in case it wasn’t real pretty. I used regular yellow cake but made two thin sheet cakes and sandwiched raspberry jam in between the layers. I then iced it with whipped cream cheese icing and since red food coloring + icing almost always yields pink (not to mention the fact that I was correct in my deduction that precision with icing and stripes would not be plausible for me) I used decorators sugar and a piece of paper to get the sparkly stripes. Decorator’s sugar was easy to find and an awesome value at $1.89 a shaker with an added bonus that I only used a wee bit.

The birthday boy liked it so I felt it to be a culinary triumph if not an exact replica. The kids went NUTS over who got the biggest piece of the “shield,” which, for those that are curious, was made of piped white chocolate, twizzlers and Mike &Ike.

I aim to please.