Extrageektacular Activities: Duff's Cake Mix

Extrageektacular Activities are geeky field trips that encourage your child’s creativity and are a fun time for the whole family!

When you have a kid who loves art and drawing there are a lot of ways to encourage their hobby. Art classes and museums are good options, but a unique way that might not readily come to mind is one of my favorites: food! Cake decorating is a great exercise in creativity, especially when you add elements from comics, video games, and books. I took some kids to Duff’s Cake Mix in West Hollywood to put their art skills to the test.

Duff’s Cake Mix is a part of the West Coast operation of Charm City Cakes, a custom bakery made famous by Duff Goldman and his show Ace of Cakes. Here they have a walk-in bakery filled with baked goods like brownies, cupcakes, and some unique items like Peanut Butter and Jelly Cake and their popular Cake in a Jar.

The real fun is the attached Decorating Studio. Parties can come and decorate their very own cakes using a Decorating Kit. When we got there we were assigned a decorator helper who told us about the process and how all the stations worked. With the help of an easy-to-use form, you pick your cake and filling flavors, the canvas (base) color type, and medium: frosting or fondant.

Watching a professional put fondant on a cake was a sight to behold, they make it look so easy! Once the cake was covered it was off to choose tools and equipment then to the “Goodie Bar” to choose frosting piping bag colors and candy decor.

I took a 9-year-old, a 7-year-old, and a 4-year-old. Normally the bakery doesn’t advise having children under seven participate but they do allow it. The older kids were given cake and the youngest was given cupcakes which proved to be the perfect match for his attention span.

A good idea is to discuss ideas with kids beforehand, figure out what they want to make, and visualize how they were going to make it work. This helps a lot in getting the process going. Sketching out ideas is a good way to understand how they plan to execute it.

The 9-year-old went with a Minecraft theme; of course he did! He started with a canvas of blue fondant then chose to mold a Creeper head out of green fondant, using the same color as accents. Then he frosted a Minecraft pig in the front and added “gunpowder” (silver sprinkles) around the top. A true Minecraft masterpiece!

The 7-year-old loves Batman so that cake got the yellow fondant treatment for the canvas. He used the black fondant for cookie cutter letters and the Batman head he cut by hand. The kids really got into the details like the candy pearls to make the cakes look finished.

The 4-year-old (in his own chef’s coat, no less), with a little help from his mom, really enjoyed rolling and cutting the fondant, and using the candies to decorate. Moving from one small cupcake to another was just what he needed to keep his interest. Even though he was young, he worked right alongside the big boys and had a lot of fun. He said the best thing about it was that “I got to do it all by myself!”

The entire staff at Duff’s Cake Mix was so helpful, they happily answered questions and gave tips on easier ways to get things done. Everything at the studio was extremely organized, you never had to look too far for anything. I do a lot of baking and decorating, but I can’t imagine doing this at home. Here the space, the details, and having all the equipment and supplies at your disposal definitely made it worthwhile.

Cake decorating was a great exercise in getting kids to think creatively and use the right tools to solve design problems. Using sculpture, drawing, and mosaic they got to have a lot of fun and see their creations come to life. The best part of creating art out of food? Eating it!

Duff’s Cake Mix
8302 Melrose Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
(323) 650-5555
http://www.duffscakemix.com

Mon-Thu 11 am – 6:30 pm
Fri 11 am – 10 pm
Sat 10 am – 10 pm
Sun 10 am – 6:30 p.m.