Cascading M&M Cake

I don't remember who sent me a picture of one of these cakes, but someone did.  I was looking for a cool idea to raise some money for my Breast Cancer 3-Day Walk and thought maybe, just maybe, people would donate if I offered up one of these cakes to the winner of a drawing.  I wasn't wrong!

Of course there is a "trick" to the cake.  You can see how I learned how to make one with the link below.

Cascading M&M Cake

To start with you need "balloon sticks."  I had no idea what a balloon stick was, but luckily Amazon.com did!  So I ordered some.  Of course it's far cheaper if you order a boatload of them so if anyone needs some balloon sticks give me a call!

The top of the balloon stick is "glued" to a cake board with a little melted chocolate.  Stick this in the frig for a little bit so that it firms up.  Next put a little of that melted chocolate on the tip of the balloon stick and put it in the top.  Stick this in the frig while you bake your cakes.  If you have a frig like mine, you may need to remove a shelf or two from your refrigerator!  The cakes I made were much bigger than the one in the demonstration above.  My bottom layer was a 9" round cake, the top layer 6".

When the cake is cooled, put the first layer down on the cake board, poking a hole through it with the balloon stick.

Frost the top of that layer and add the second, then frost the edges and top.

Before you frost the second tier, poke a hole in the middle of the cake board so you can easily place it on the bottom layers.

Frost the top tier, then place it on top of the bottom tier.  You could put dowels in the lower tier to help support the top tier if you like.  I didn't in this case.

Now the fun part!

I dumped a big bag of M&M's in a bowl so I could pick and choose which colors went where. I started placing the M&M's on the cake and outlined where the "flow" would go, then filled in the middle.

To get the M&Ms to stick on the stick you are supposed to use the chocolate.  Put a little chocolate on the stick then M&M's then wait for the chocolate to harden then add a little more and on and on.  Well, if you know me, I'm not a terribly patient person.  I got impatient waiting for the chocolate to harden so I tried just using the buttercream.

Well, that didn't work so well, all of a sudden a bunch of M&M's slid down the stick in a pile!  OK, I will work on my patience.  I added a few M&M's, put the whole thing in the frig, cleaned up a little, added a few more M&M's, back in the frig, cleaned something else, and on and on until I had the M&M's far enough up the stick that I could add the bag of M&M's.

I stuffed the bag with a little paper towel to make it look "full" and put it on top.  Here's the finished result!  The winner gave this cake to her nephews for their 8th birthday party.  I hear it was a hit!