Camping Themed Birthday + Campfire Cake

This year's annual birthday planning had to include TWO girls since Elodie turned one this month. Harlow turns seven later this month. I needed a cake theme that fit both of them. I went with camping since we've spent the last few months camping as a family.

I made the Stanton State Park pennant with my Cricut and personalized a shirt from Walmart for Colin. Stanton is our last name, but if it was a real state park, we would have tie dye uniforms. 😄

Here are the cake details:

• The cake is strawberry, and the recipe is from Call Me PMc. I was careful to find a cake mix that was milk free.
• The filling icing is bakery frosting. You can find the recipe in this past post. I think it's best to make this icing ahead of time and let it sit in the fridge to let the flavors mix together. I added vanilla in addition to almond extract. This isn't a frosting I recommend making the day of or even day before. It won't taste right. It will taste like vegetable shortening. It needs to sit! A few days before serving, add chopped mashed strawberries. I think this icing is best when it has strawberries in it. You can even make it, strawberries included, and store it in the freezer if it's going to be a couple weeks before you serve it. Take it out to thaw in the fridge for a couple days.
• I wanted the outside icing to be white. I didn't make the bakery frosting for the outside, because I don't like it without strawberries. My youngest daughter has a milk allergy, so I needed a recipe that was dairy-free. I made 7 minute frosting for the first time, and it was delicious! It tastes like marshmallows. I had to mix it for much longer than 7 minutes, but it eventually did get to the whipped consistency. I will definitely be making it again!
• The dirt is gluten free crushed Oreos (wanted to see how they compared in taste to the original). The logs are dark chocolate Pirouline. I followed this tutorial to make the flames. I made the little campers with a candy mold from Michael's and white melting chocolate and food dye. The gummy worms are Albanese-- the yummiest gummy worms in my opinion. I didn't get a picture of the 1 and 7 candles, but they were cute and fit the theme. 😆
• I made Elodie a mini "smash" cake. It also kept her from having the couple items I added to the main cake that had dairy (campers, Pirouline).