Semi-Homemade "Puppy Cake"

For Paxton's 2nd birthday, I was all about keeping it simple.  Even so, I wanted the "theme" to be special and represent something he loves.  There's NO better choice than his prized possesion: PUPPY.  Puppy has been around since before he was born, and Paxton attached himself to Puppy sometime around a year old (I think).  Puppy sleeps with him, plays with him, and calms him down when he's upset. 

So, I thought it was fitting to try and put his beloved Puppy on Paxton's 2nd birthday cake. Initially I had NO interest in making the cake and decorating it myself. I thought it ought to be easy to just bring in a photo to any old bakery and they'd whip up a great design for me.  So I took this photo and went cake shopping:

Bust. Most places wouldn't do it at all and suggested alternatives like other dogs or bears (NOT the same), some would scan it and print the photograph onto the cake (eh, not really right), and one bakery would do it and charge me an arm and a leg for a teeny-tiny cake (which if I had lots of money, probably would have been a perfect choice), and finally I said, forget it. I'll do it myself -- he's only two, he won't care if I screw it up.

So, I stopped at a sandwich shop and I sat down and drew this picture (lucky for me, they even had crayons at the counter for me!):

I figured, if I could draw Puppy, surely I could ice him on a cake...right?  (Keep in mind I'm SO not a food display or preparation kind of girl.  I much prefer paper, glue & paint!)

So, next, determined to give Paxton a Puppy cake he would love, I trudged around WalMart looking for icing, cake mix and inspiration.  As I got to the front of the store, my cart full with cake mix, frosting, yellow cupcake icing, I make a last-ditch stop at the bakery to see if perhaps the Walmart Bakery could help me out.  Once again, they said, nope, we don't do freehand. 

"But...." she said..."I could scan your drawing for you and give you an edible template that you could pipe icing over the top of".  Why didn't anyone else give me that option? Awesome!  So while she was scanning the turning Puppy into an edible template for me, I took a quick look at the pre-made cakes in the display case and noticed this adorable cake that was perfectly iced with multi-colored balloons and orange outline.  As I imagined a crumbly, probably burned, not-very-pretty iced cake that I made myself I thought "Oh, how much easier it would be to just add Puppy to THAT cake."  And so, that's exactly what I did!

(Unfortunately I was so excited to ice the cake, I forgot to take step-by-step photos of this part, but you get the idea)

Add a little bit of cupcake & cookie icing, the template went onto the top of the cake, and I iced and iced and iced and iced...

And we ended up with exactly the cake I dreamed of (okay, not exactly, but close enough) when I decided I wanted a Puppy cake for Paxton.  I'll call it "semi-homemade". :)  And believe me...everyone who eats the cake is glad it was!