June at the Fayyad household is a month of celebrations! Both my parents celebrate their birthdays, it’s my parent’s wedding anniversary mid-month and of course, Father’s Day.

My inner party planner gets really excited about all these occasions and yes, I start planning at least a month in advance. I get an unexplainable amount of joy pulling together parties and making crafts for other people. Namely, the people I love. Just give me the opportunity, and I’ll be there with my craft box!

This year, we’ve been having our celebrations at home. For Father’s Day, I opted to make my own cake. I wasn’t sure how it would turn out, as custom cakes aren’t really my specialty. I decided instead of just a plain round or square cake, I would spell something out. That’s also because, for the life of me, I cannot frost a cake properly. “Baba” or بابا means dad in Arabic. I’ve always referred to my dad as Baba. It isn’t until I got a bit older that I started calling him Dad.

I know that everyone thinks their dad is special — and every dad is special. My dad is my first love, he’s my rock; he has supported me through the good times and those not so easy times in life. He’s a visionary, always worrying about the future and securing our futures for us so that we can stand independently. My dad is my greatest teacher. He spent many afternoons teaching me Arabic, many nights reading me stories, and many mornings having long discussions. Our discussions range from anything and everything about politics to the latest Arabic music. While I know I don’t express this enough, I love my dad with all my heart. And what better way to show all my love and appreciation than with a craft.

Materials
3 Boxes Yellow Cake Mix (or whatever flavor you want) Just to make this easy, I used boxed cake instead of a cake from scratch
1 large sheet pan
1 13×17 baking pan
A Sharp Knife
Frosting/powdered sugar
Serving Platter
Construction Paper
Scissors
Ruler

First thing’s first, bake your cake. Using the directions on the box, bake all the pieces of the cake. I used two cake mix boxes for the sheet cake and one box for the 13×17″ pan.

Allow the cakes to cool for a couple hours before cutting. If you notice the cakes cracking, place a piece of sliced bread on top to retain the moisture.

Create a stencil out of construction paper or cardboard with the dimensions of your letters. Basically I used a ruler to make one ‘B’ and one ‘A.’ Measure 1 1/2″ for the rectangular portion of the ‘B’ and the two sides of the ‘A.’ Using a small bowl, I then stenciled the round part of the ‘B’ and the top part of the ‘A,’ then cut each of the letters out. It’s much easier to tape the ‘A’ together so you only have one piece of cake to cut out.

Once the cake has cooled, begin cutting the cakes into the shapes you need. Place your stencil on top of the cakes and using a sharp knife cut around your stencil. When you need to remove the insides of the circles of the ‘B’ and the top portion of the ‘A’ use a small spoon to scoop the cake out. Transport your letters individually onto a platter, or a piece of large cardboard.

Carefully frost with your favorite frosting [Vanilla works great with yellow cake], or sprinkle with powdered sugar.