How to... Make a "Shave Ice" cake

 I got the cutest order from Mari for a shave ice cake for her friend's birthday. She wanted red velvet + cream cheese and the "flavors" to be the OG (original gangsta) of red, yellow, blue. If you don't know what shave ice is, it is literally shaving ice into a fine "snow-like" texture, and then pouring your choice of syrup over it. It's a snack Hawaii is known for and always good for any hot day.

What you'll need:
-A bowl (to act as the "shave ice" bowl you will be building your cake in) **I bought mine from safeway, just basic blue bowl
 -Cake of your choice
-Serrated knife
-Frosting
-Sprinkles (Red, yellow, blue ...or whatever color choices you decide on) **these can be bought at any local grocery store or Walmart
-Straw
-Wooden Spoon (optional)

So as always the first step is baking your cake and preparing your frosting. Bake your cake as directed and leave to cool. I baked the cake in a 9 x 13 pan just in case I needed extra cake for any mistakes, hehe.

After allowing cake to completely cool, start by grabbing the bowl you bought to build your cake in. Use the bottom of the bowl as a stencil to cut out a circle that fits into the bowl as a base perfectly.

 Next, grab your icing and start covering the entire first layer of cake in preparation for the next layer.

For the next step, grab another bowl and use the top, widest portion of it as a stencil for the next 2 layers. So you should end up with 2 cake circles. Don't worry if the circles are not exactly identical, you will be cutting them down anyway. Place the first layer on top of the layer you just iced and trim to fit bowl. After trimmed, ice just the top of that layer.

 Use your 2nd circle cake cut out from the previous step, and place it on top of the iced layer. This will be your final layer for the cake. Taking a serrated knife round corners to give it a "shave ice" mound kind of look.

Finally, grab your icing and ice the rest of the cake. I suggest icing in one direction in a circular motion. The cake does not necessarily need to be "perfectly smooth," because we are imitating ice, but be sure to try to make all sides look symmetrical.

Finally grab your sprinkles and with each color, sprinkle in sections as if to imitate the flavors of the "shave ice." See below for a better description. Make sure to cover as much of the frosting as possible, its best to sprinkle over a pan or plate, one color at a time so you can make use of the sprinkles that fell.

Finally put in your wooden spoon and straw to complete the "look," to give your "Shave Ice" cake more realistic details! Easy right?!

Have fun!
-Kristie