Gumball Machine

by Lisa Trett
(Camillus, NY)

I made this for my son's 8th birthday.
I baked 3 6" round cakes and two half-circle cakes using 7" & 9" pyrex bowls (I didn't have two the same size, but it works fine!). I popped them in the freezer overnight after cooling them out of the molds to make it easier to carve my desired shapes.
I used a basic buttercream frosting recipe and tinted about 2/3 of it blue. I stacked the three 6" pieces with buttercream between the layers and frosted the cylinder blue. I trimmed down a 6" cardboard cake support disc to fit right inside the top piece and held it in place with 3 8" wilton lollipop sticks trimmed to fit right to the edge of the cardboard disc, and then I inserted a wooden skewer in the center that extended a few inches above the disc. I placed the smaller bowl shape right side up ontop of the cardboard and the larger one inverted on top of that and frosted them white. I just used a cup to cut out two small rounds for the very top blue part - if I do this again, I'd just bake a cupcake along with the other pieces and trim it down though. I then piped on some blue trim. I took a little of the white frosting and tinted it grey, made a thick layer on wax paper and popped it in the freezer. When it was hard, I carved out a little "coin slot" and stuck a gold coin on it. I used the remaining icing to stick on gumballs half way up the globe part, and spilling out the register of the gumball machine. My son was super surprised for his party!