Parks & No Wreck: Sunday Sweets To TREAT YO'SELF
April 17, 2016 This week is National Park Week, so I decided to round up 10 Sweet nature cakes that would make Leslie Knope proud.
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(By Intricate Icings Cake Design)
Preeeeettty.
Now, I'm a hermit blogger with what my doctor described as a "shocking" vitamin D deficiency, so I think it's safe to say I'm not the outdoorsy type. BUT! I hear there's actually a lot you can do in our national parks.
Things like:
Kayaking:
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(By Mike's Amazing Cakes)
Hiking:
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(By Sweet and Sassy)
Camping:
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(By The Royal Bakery)
And fishing!
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(By Tiffany's Baking Co.)
At least, I think you can fish in some parks, right? Either way, those sculpted waves over the fish are super cool. (Note all the broken hooks, 'cuz the fish won. Ha!)
There's also that classic park activity:
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(By Little "Miss" OC's Kitchen)
Eating!
Or I guess the proper term is "picnicking."
For you park-lovers getting married, here's a delicate hand painted number:
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(By Cake Central member Ratga)
I like how the tree tops extend over the tiers!
Or how about the pebbles-and-bark textures on this one?
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(By Delicut Cakes)
Not to mention my favorite color flowers. Mmmm.
This sugar waterfall works perfectly with a topsy-turvy cake:
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(By Rising Flours)
Also perfect? The white frothy bits near the bottom. So good.
I'm diggin' the silhouettes on this one:
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(By Colorado Rose Cake Company)
Plus? It's fondant-free!
And finally, while it's not exactly a parks-celebrating cake, I couldn't pass up showing you guys this EPIC Ron Swanson lumberjack cake:
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(By Artisan Cake Company.)
Even the axe is sugar! And it's filled with red flannel!
Now that's sweet.
Happy Sunday, everyone!
*****
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Reader Comments (31)
I am in love with that picnic basket :D so cute, and the fishing one made me giggle slightly :D
Sunday Sweets restore my faith in humanity before Monday to Friday Cakewrecks drains it away again. The last cake made me laugh in admiration, while the rest of the cakes just made me sigh in envy. Love the buttercream mountains.
Psst! I am by no means an expert, but the second one is kayaking, not rafting. Things you pick up living in Colorado and driving past Golden... :-)
[Editor's note- Ha! You're right. Bwoops. Thanks for the heads up. -john (thoJ)]
These are so fun! Truly some mad decorating skills here. Thanks for sharing that.
"Hunt, fish, X Go home..." Love it.
Lumber Jack Cake: 10/10.
No4 is not camping, thats a little caravan, and its only camping in a tent!! Caravaning is for sissies who cant do without solid walls.....you know your camping when its just a fabric wall between you and the rain.
I must say. That last one is axcellent.
I don't usually speak up on Sunday Sweets, but I just wanted to let you know that's not actually a pebble texture on the "pebbles-&-bark" cake. What that is is cork, the spongy layer beneath bark on trees. That's the layer that food and water actually filter through up and down. (Ah, the things you remember from your 20-years-ago Bachelor of Science!)
My daughter took one look at the last cake and said that it can't be a Ron Swanson cake because there is no BACON on it!! (and she's a vegetarian, no less.)
That daisy on top of the buttercream mountain cake looks like it's supposed to be the sun. :D. And that camper makes me think of a fishing bobber. Maybe the cake below it has The One That Got Away.
I love these cakes!
Diddly, Caravanning is for those of us "of a certain age" who need a decent mattress between us and the cold, cold ground. We used to have a pop-up which gave us a canvass over our heads, and a mattress under them.
However - those are all spectacular cakes, and I vote for the red flannel one! I also DEEPLY appreciate the fact that the picnic basket only has Lady Bugs, not ants!
All are lovely and, yes, they definitely restore faith in the artistry of decorators but, gotta say, the simple beauty-no waves or cutesy figures- of the monogrammed cake almost makes me want to get married again.
Every now and then you post cakes that make me ask my husband for a divorce so we can get remarried with a prettier cake. The bird one at the top here just made me ask him for a divorce again, although I really like the tree one too.
Where I come from its not caravanning unless there's more that 1 camper in the group. Also, my mother is in her 70's and can still hack it in the tent, she just prefers to bring the camper along to make things easier, and she pulls it with a 1 ton truck that's a stick.
I share your pain in the "shocking" vit. D deficiency, and I'm outdoorsy.
The last two cakes are what my dreams are made of. Thank you!
Waterfall!!
how could you bear to cut some of these cakes?
Sunday Sweets AND Parks and Rec?
I KNEW you were my favorite.
"Parks and Wreck"! So clever! I love Parks and Recreation; this post was hilarious!
Yay!! A Parks & Rec post!!!
I absolutely love each of these cakes, but the waterfall on that topsy-turvy one and the inside of that last one… that's art. That transcends food. If I were at a party and those were pulled out, no dessert, folks! Look but don't touch!
That sugar waterfall is amazing. Love your collection of outdoor cakes! (BTW - vitamin D deficiency can make anxiety and depression worse so start raising it. Mine was all the way down to 6 and now I am taking 2 different types of vitamin D to bring it slowly up. Good luck!)
I, too, love that the picnic basket cake did not have ants but adorable ladybugs instead. It's so "sweet, and innocent, and pretty."
and John and Jennifer.... "You guys are the best, most important people in the most important government in the best city in the world."
I love them all, except the hiking boots ruin an otherwise beautiful cake.
Absolutely gorgeous! I needed these today. Thanks!
Very cool cakes. I love the one with flannel inside. That must have been a great surprise for the guests.
And on the subject of National Parks, did you know that if you haul a 4th grader along on your journeys you can get access to all the National Parks FOR FREE: https://www.everykidinapark.gov/
Just thought I'd spread the word!
I wanted to shout out to the kayak cake. I've seen it in person (it's in Mike's shop) and it's epic. Also, if you don't get a cake like that, Mike's is shockingly affordable.(They made my wedding cake and it was delicious, and 100% would never be on this site 'cause it was beautiful, but not exciting enough for Sunday Sweets.)
That last cake is very Red Green 😉
(Canadian reference)
I recently went camping with three other moms and our combined eighteen children. One more mom and her five joined us the next day.
It was epic. Horrifying, but in a fun way, like a roller coaster.......
The Piranha!
That cake is seriously haunting!
Hope they didn't serve it in a kids party:)
The "lumberjack cake" with the axe is amazing! Truly epic idea. Cudos to the creator!
I was a scout leader, I camped with other peoples children and my own,in winter.
I think that there's a chance the topsy-turvy waterfall cake is supposed to represent a real place - Yosemite Falls, upper and lower. One of my favorite places, many fond memories in that park.
Also some not-so-fond ones, like descending the steps carved into the cliff face at the falls, close enough that parts of the staircase are slick with water from the falls. Oh, and also that time I got in trouble for drinking too much of the hot chocolate my sister and I were sharing and warming our hands with. It was cooling off, so I drank a little more than half of what was left, and my sister started crying and got a whole new hot chocolate all to herself.