Sammy's Volcano Cake

A friend called to order a cake. It was for her 10 yr old son, Sam. Their only requests were to have a vanilla cake with "really good" chocolate frosting. Sam is a tough kid to impress, so I knew I had to think out of the box. I spent a while brainstorming, then hit the internet. Their family is heading to Costa Rica for spring break. I did some research and found that there is volcano that erupts daily called the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica. So there was my idea, now how to pull it off?! Well, I made colored sugar candy lava, green coconut grass, 2- 8" cakes and another one in a batter bowl (dome shaped).

Lots of good chocolate buttercream frosting too! I then used an ice cream scoop to make a cavity in the top of the volcano. I inserted a glass votive holder and covered the edges with frosting.
When we delivered the cake, I added the lava (orange and red colored sugar candy) shooting out of the top and filled the votive half way with water and dropped in 3 dry ice pellets (thank goodness I have an awesome hubbie who drove into St Paul for me to find some dry ice) and.............the volcano came alive!!! From the bubbling sound to the lofts of smoke and shards of lava- it worked!

The best part? Sam watching it and jumping up and down over and over saying, "I love it, wow, cool, look Mom!" I even got a hug out of it! You may think that the fact that I am a chocoholic and sweets fanatic is the reason I love to do this. Not so much.

Seeing that reaction and joy in the birthday boy, that's what it is all about. Making other people happy, even if only until the smoke clears.