Never thought I'd deliver a RAW (get it?) cake. (Click photos to enlarge.)

Hayden was having a WWE "RAW/Smack Down" wresting themed sleepover to celebrate his 9th birthday. His momma told me all he wanted giftwise were these wrestling figurines, and she thought he would think it was pretty awesome if we could build a cake around them. I ran into a couple problems that were firsts for me while making this cake.  First, I don't usually like anything on my cake that isn't edible, so typically I'm vehemently against toys or anything plastic sitting on cakes.  But as I went Googling for ideas on what to do, I found that cakes with "fondant" wrestlers were just pretty bad.  I think even the best cakers struggle with giant fondant muscles, mullets, goatees, tattoos, and skin tight leotards.  I decided to make an exception to my "no toy" rule just this once, because for this cake, the toys just really worked.  Another issue I dealt with on this cake was that it was my first BIG flavor mistake.  Only after I had baked and cooled a white almond sour cream sheet cake and whipped up a double batch of vanilla bean buttercream did I recall that this cake was supposed to be chocolate on chocolate.  Ah well, it all worked out in the end, as Hayden was adorable and said he was certain white on white would be just delicious.  What a sweet, sweet kid.  I didn't think I would like this cake, but in the end, I thought it was pretty hilarious and was quite proud of it.  Except for the figurines, everything else is edible.