The Lego Robber Birthday Cake

The long-awaited Police Station he's been coveting for the last 5 months.  All 782 pieces of which he put together by himself.

Little Brother is a person of bordering-on-obsessive passions.  A couple of years ago, it was mail - our days revolved around the arrival of the mailman, the best present you could buy him was a box of envelopes, and his preschool teacher took to saving her junk mail for him, just to see his delight.  Our house was covered in folded pieces of scratch paper and ripped envelopes, and Little Brother spent the day with a tote slung over his shoulder and a cap on his head.  He was our own personal Jolly Pocket Postman.

Then somewhere along the way, his attention turned to cops and robbers, where it's been fixed for the last year or so (witness last year's birthday cake):

This year he added Lego to his list of loves, and to celebrate 4 turning into 5, asked for a "robber cake."  But not just any old robber - in his world, robbers look somewhat like this:

Lego's silicone cake mold (which you can still find on ebay and etsy) is too small to make a convincing birthday cake ... and you'd have to pay an exhorbitant $35+ for it.  So I came up with my own.  And in case you ever find yourself needing to make a Lego minifigure cake to grant the wishes of a small boy, here's how.

The cylindrical head is a key component of a Lego minifigure.  So I baked it in a tomato can - any 28oz can will do (peaches, pumpkin?),  just make sure it's not lined with plastic.  The body and legs were cut from sheet cakes.  I like to freeze the cakes first so they are easier to handle, plus it's nice to get that out of the way a week in advance and not be doing everything last minute.

The top of the cake in the can rose nicely to make a good dome shape for the robber's hat.  If you need a generic stud-topped head, just do what I did to make the neck - cut a circle into the center of the bottom, about 3/4" deep, then cut a slice from the end, being careful to cut just to the neck as you go around, and not through it.  Bevel the hard edge a little bit, and you've got a decent minifigure head.

The body and legs are pretty easy, especially if you have a minifigure on hand for guidance with proportions. 

And for the arms and hand, Twinkies (you may need to stick in a few toothpicks to keep them from rolling.)

Frost with your favorite icing (I was lazy so I used a star tip for most of it.)  Just be sure to use the right shade of Lego yellow for the head.

And there you have it, an edible rendition of this:

As posed by the 5-year-old. 

Guess who spends entire days being handcuffed and hauled off to jail (then told in a stage whisper to undo the cuffs while he's not looking so she can go steal the play money again)?  But really, not so bad when the officer is this cute.  I always did have a weakness for guys in uniform.

He now lives in the costume his brothers got him for his birthday.  I think I'm going to make him a striped shirt and black cap for Christmas.