I had the idea to make little baby blocks out of the cake. I baked two rectangular cakes, one yellow, one chocolate, let them cool, iced the top of one and stacked them. Trimming the edges for perfectly flat sides and cutting out cubes was easy enough. (There were a lot of cake scraps leftover, which Len would later use to make a modified version of his mom's trifle for an office party.)
But, I severely underestimated the amount of frosting I would need and had to settle for frosting only three sides of each block—the presentation sides, we'll call them. And, even though I did what pastry chefs would call the crumb coating (a preliminary thin layer of frosting to seal the crumbs to the cake), the chocolate layer of the cake was still so crumby that the white icing ended up looking like cookies 'n' creme icing. Not a huge deal, but not Martha Stewart perfect. (If you search for baby block cakes online, you'll find most use fondant for a perfectly smooth, flat look. I did not want to use fondant and used all soft, butter cream-like icing—way more difficult for handling the individual blocks, but much tastier.)
Before I reveal the finished product, let me just say: If I'd had more frosting and more patience, I would have used more than just three colors for trimming and decorating the blocks. And, if I'd considered beforehand how bad I am at drawing, I would have piped only letters on the blocks, instead of trying to draw things like a cat, a car, a leaf... I know you can't tell what they are. Oh, and the wooden skewers sticking out of the blocks? I made the cake a day in advance and used skewers to hold up the plastic wrap, so I could protect the cake from drying out without smearing the icing. A big enough Tupperware container, if I had the right size/shape, would have been better.
Anyway, here it is, not bad for my first baby shower cake, definitely homemade, and only room to improve:
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