Jack's Robot Party

Happy Birthday (Again) Jack!

Jackie (aka Robot Boy) turned three on June 1st but his party isn't until tomorrow.  Jack has been asking for months for cupcakes with robots on them.  Matt and I had a whole idea ready to go last night about how we were going to make a robot shaped cake and cupcakes.  Well, when I went to bake today, my oven was not cooperating.  It kept turning off in the middle of baking, which caused two of the small cakes I was making to collapse in the center.  I got super frustrated and decided to go with a much simpler idea.  I used his invitation as inspiration....

I made a chocolate half sheet cake and swiss meringue butter cream.  I cut the letters and robot out of leftover fondant.  I also decorated around the edges of the cake with chocolate buttercream that I made for the cupcakes.

It wasn't what I originally wanted to make, so I'm a little disappointed.  Hopefully Jack will like it anyway. 

I did not think that the cake would be enough for the large party tomorrow, so I decided to make cupcakes as well.  I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate meringue frosting.  I had found silver jimmies (sprinkles for those of you not from Philly) at HomeGoods a few weeks ago, so I thought they'd be perfect for the robot theme.  I dipped the cupcakes in the silver jimmies, then I had no idea what to do.  My mom and Matt helped me stare at the cupcakes to come up with an idea.  We tried putting eyes and a mouth on them that looked like the eyes on the cake just in a smaller form.  Well, the eyes ended up looking more like deviled eggs.  Then we tried to put red instead of yellow at the center of the eyes.  Then it looked the GEICO money.  Finally, my mom had the idea of doing robot silhouettes on each of the cupakes.  I think they turned out pretty cute. 

It is supposed to be VERY hot tomorrow, and I'm a little worried about the cupcakes and cake melting on the way over to the party.  What do you do to keep cakes from melting and falling apart in the summer time?