Polka Dotted Cake

The Big Bash seems like it was so long ago. It wasn't even two weeks. How did time slip by so quickly?

In can you missed the photos from our little man's bash, we made him a polka dotted cake. It turned out exactly as I had hoped.

Before I go on too much further, I need to make it clear my mother-in-law makes beautiful cakes. She made the cake for Scott and my wedding.

Gorgeous.

I was fortunate that she agreed to help me make Marcus' birthday cake. She made the whole thing from start to finish. I simply provided an idea and she ran with it.

SO CUTE! Crazy awesome, right?!

Cut into the cake and you get this:

Love it!

As a mere spectator, this was much easier than I thought. Here's how it works...

1) Make your polka dot cake balls in advance. You can bake them a few days prior to making the whole cake. If you make them ahead of time freeze them, and let them thaw fully before baking your large cake.
If you bake the polka dots the same day as your large cake allow them to cool fully before adding them to the larger cake.
Hang in there, this will all make sense in a minute.
* I suggest using a cake ball pan that has a top on it. That way your cake balls will come out nice and round. Be sure you use plenty of cooking spray to prevent the cake from sticking to the tin.

Source

The cake pan I picked up is like the one pictured above.
*We tried to use Red Velvet cake (I really wanted red polka dots). Red Velvet was a complete FAIL. If you're looking for red polka dots I strongly suggest using your go-to white cake mix and adding red food gel coloring.
2) To make the cake balls I baked at 350 for about 12 minutes. The cake balls were just under being done, which was exactly what I was hoping.
3) Once the cake balls have cooled there may be some rough edges. Simply use a pair of kitchen scissors to clean up the edges a bit.
4) Make your go-to white cake batter.
*Again, if you made the cake balls ahead of time and froze them, be sure they're thawed out by this point. Or, if you made them day of be sure they're totally cool.
5) Pour about 1/2 the white cake batter into the bottom of your cake pan.

6) Place your cake balls in the batter.
7) Use the remaining white cake batter to cover the cake balls.

8) Bake your cake according to your go-to white cake directions.
10) If you're doing a multi-layer cake repeat steps 3-6.
11) Layer your cake.

A few tips:
We My mother-in-law used a 12" round cake pan and needed about 15 cake balls per layer.
For ease and convenience we used a boxed cake mix for the polka dots, and one box was plenty for the number of polka dots we wanted.

Your end product should come out with polka dots galore!

Such a fun, and easy way to spruce up an otherwise ordinary white cake. And, I bet your guests will enjoy the unexpected twist!

I picked up inspiration for Marcus' cake {here}. Lilly goes into great detail with her steps. If you need a full blown breakdown of the polka dot cake be sure to check out her post!