Mom's Build-a-Man

Have you ever seen those build-a-bear workshops? You take your child in to this store that promises to let your kid “build” a new friend. After selecting  the “friend” they want, the sales rep attaches the limp, empty animal body onto the fluff machine and proceeds to fill up the animal with stuffing. After picking out a nifty new outfit and dressing their animal, your son or daughter now has a new friend and you’re out about $50. Anyway, the point to this story is that recently I was charged with coming up with a gag cake after my sister and I decided that our mom needed a man for her birthday.

It was mom’s 60^th birthday, and we were going to throw her a surprise party. Since neither my sister nor I have a supply of extra men lying around to give mom, we figured we build her a man. We’d considered a stripper, but expected having a buff dude in a speedo shaking his stuff in mom’s face would probably give her a heart attack—that and she’d probably kill us afterward.

Being that one of my hobbies is cake decorating, my sister came up with the bright idea to make a man for mom. Needless to say, when you google man-cakes, you get a variety of very inappropriate pictures of the male anatomy depicted in cake. Okay, so when someone says birthday cake, I think about three layers; chocolate, yellow, or white; covered in fondant or buttercream. Maybe a few flowers to pretty it up. Boobs and penises don’t typically come to mind. But hey, I’m up for a challenge.

My husband had a creative suggestion. He thought I should make a male torso with a large penis, stick a candle in the end of the cake-man’s rod, then make mom grab it to blow out the candle. Um, yeah. Mom would NOT do that, and I’m sure some of her church friends wouldn’t appreciate it. Since I had no idea who was coming to this party, I figured I’d have to tone it down a bit. I like the torso idea, but how to make it sexy and not raunchy was a whole other matter.

After quite a bit of googling, you-tubing, Amazoning, and flickring, I finally found what I was looking for. Well, at least I had an idea to start with, anyway. Combining mom’s love for yellow roses and chest hair (not that the two have anything to do with each other, mind you), I think I came up with a super hot alternative to X-rated. My sister loved the 80’s chest hair. Hey, making all them little curls took some time!

Mom was embarrassed, but I think she like it. We made her cut the cake and everyone got to  eat a piece of mom’s man. She said she was saving the part under the fondant shroud for later, when she was by herself! Imagine that, my mom with a naughty sense of humor.