I was nearly done in by a kickity kick ball

My son Jacob turned 3 on Friday. I had a heck of a time thinking of what kind of cake to make him.

He loves Spongebob, trains and balls, but I've already done those cakes. I didn't want to do a similar one for him that I had already done for Joshua.

So, one day I asked Joshua what kind of cake he thought I should do for Jacob, and he gave it some thought. After a few minutes he said, "How about Wow Wow Wubbzy!" My brain did a very quick scan of Wubbzy's shape to determine if I could even make that, and since he is primarily a rectangle, I said "Yes! What a brilliant idea."

When the time finally came to plan the cake, I had opted for just a 9 x 13 white sheet cake that I planned on frosting yellow, and cutting out Wubbzy's little bumps/ears or whatever they are on top of his head. Easy. Peasy.

But, unfortunately at the last minute I also decided to add hands, feet, tail and a kickity kick ball. I cut the hands, feet and trademark tail out of cardboard with the intent of frosting them later. But, the kickity kick ball was going to be a chocolate cake made from scratch, with mousse layers and a ganache frosting. Blue with light blue polka dots...just like on the cartoon.


The sheet cake and appendages came off without a hitch. I frosted them all yellow, and piped dots on and around the cake to embellish. I finally traced all the parts with a black frosting, and made eyes, nose and mouth as well. Wubbzy was complete, and ridiculously cute if I do say so myself.

The chocolate cake on the other hand....

I have no idea what went wrong. I've made cakes for years, and never have I seen such a thing. The cake would not come out of the pans at all. They crumbled and cracked and fell apart, but I was determined to salvage it. I managed to get one cake round on the cake plate, then topped it with some chocolate mousse. So far so good. Then, I carefully placed the next cake on top. Very shaky looking, but I persisted. I topped it off with more mousse and walked away to rinse the dishes. When I returned, half the ball had fallen off. The cake cracked right along the side and fell. I glued the crap out of that thing with frosting and mousse and mangled it back to a semi-circular looking object. I was not about to be outsmarted by some flour and eggs, by god!

Then, my brilliant ganache idea was up next to bat. I poured it on top of the ballish shaped object, and watched as it ran all over my freaking table, and over the already perfectly frosted yellow hands of the Wubster.

I was not daunted by this however. Apparently I was in a good mood that day, because otherwise I normally would've tossed the whole entire chocolate mess into the garbage...or more than likely eaten the crap out of it from stress, but apparently this candida diet has also helped me cope with these type of situations. Who knew.


After cleaning up most of the spillage of the ganache, I carefully piped cute little light blue circles of buttercream all over the ball...only to watch them SLIDE RIGHT OFF!

I grabbed those frickin' frosting balls and walloped them back in the ganache bowl. I scraped off all the ganache I could without compromising even more of the cake/mousse fiasco, and mixed up a bit of dark blue buttercream. I swirled the buttercream in with the other remnants of blue ganache and chocolate mousse, creating, in my own mind, a nice tie dyed look to this lovely kickity kick ball. Not exactly the same as the show, but those are the breaks.

I carefully piped MORE light blue buttercream circles. Some of the ones on the edge started to slide off again, but I didn't care. I was SO done with that ball.


I cleaned up the ganache spillage off of everything I could and managed to mess up more of the yellow Wubbzyness, re-piped some of that, and called it done. Took my photos and wondered if I should Photoshop them before putting them on here.


In an effort of honesty and imperfection, I will post the actual photos. I'm so not an expert, but I pretend like I am in my own head, so this just kills me that the ball didn't turn out. I will do some research to see what happened. I don't think I left out an ingredient, but that's not an impossibility.

Most importantly, Jacob had a great time and loved his cake, and of course had no clue as to what mommy went through to get it just right for him. Everyone ate both cakes, and they tasted great, despite the crumbliness of the chocolate one. The favorite, oddly enough, was the chocolate mousse cake.

But from now on when I watch Wow Wow Wubbzy with my son, I will always, always hold a grudge for that Kickity Kick ball...

Before shot of the Wow Wow Wubbzy cake.

Wubbzy and Kickity, barely hanging on.

Closeup of kickity, giving into the pressure.

Jacob had a great day anyway! He loved his new light-up dino shirt, too.