I got inspired watching “Cake Boss” on TLC and decided to make a cake for my son’s 19th birthday. He is going to college on a Jazz Band Scholarship. He also plays the drums for a Blues Band and for church.

I baked the batter in a small, metal mixing bowl; a clean, Hunt’s spaghetti sauce can and a clean, soup can. The bass drum came out of the mixing bowl. I cut the Hunt’s spaghetti sauce can cake into a floor tom and a snare drum. I cut the two tom drums out of the soup can. Derek only uses one tom drum…so I ate the other one!

The cymbals were cut out of pie dough crust. The temperatures were in the 80’s the day I put the cake together, so I tried to bake the pie dough in the microwave. They got a little overdone. They rather look like slices of banana.

I put the pie dough cymbals on dowels and stuck them into the frosting on the drum to keep them steady. I ended up putting the snare drum on top of a clean, plastic lid from a spray bottle.

Impressed?

My family was not.

By the time we had the party, the tom drum had fallen over on the snare drum and it was tipped sideways. (Note: Cakes should be refrigerated until the party.)

My son couldn’t figure out what it was!

Then, when I cut the cake, everyone laughed. I used a red velvet cake mix.

My daughter said, “It looks like the ‘Armadillo Cake’ in the movie ‘Steel Magnolias’.” (In the movie, no one wanted to eat the cake because it looked like the armadillo was bleeding.)

Anyway, my frugal tip is to make your own birthday cakes. If it doesn’t turn out the way you planned, then, at least you have made a memory!