Hi all! I'm fairly new to decorating cakes! I've played around with several for family holidays and what not and my almost 6 yr old nephew is in love with the fact that I can make them and he can help now! 

He's asked me to make his birthday cake for him this year! Super exciting right? I WAS excited but now I'm slightly in panic mode!

What will be the best type of frosting for a Mario Bros themed cake using darker primary colors mostly. His party is outside so no access to a place to keep cool once we arrive at the party, and like I said the colors will be darker so I would like tips on the best type of frosting to use to withstand Michigan humidity as well as not taste gross or be weird colored with food coloring not mixing well with certain types of frosting. From what I've read the AmeriColor gel food coloring seems to have great reviews - I've never played with it before. Is this correct? Generally when I've decorated cakes in the past I've always used homemade buttercream, do you think this would be ok on this type of project? 

Any tips would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks so much! :) 

I am a hobby baker and don't charge for my cakes. But I would say $25 for your supplies would be fair.

How much did you charge ?

It can all be done with buttercream OR with fondant, or a mix of the two. The real question is, can the cake be left out of the sunlight? If you use butter in your BC it will definitely melt in the direct sun. 

As far as the bold colors go, I personally prefer to limit them, for the same reason you do, so I try to do those parts in fondant so that it may be removed before eating. I use IMBC for all my cakes, and I have never had a problem. You could always do a layer of firm  ganache and then cover it in fondant. Ganache isn't going anywhere...

If you're really worried about having the cake outside, you can construct a box with insulation and cold packs. Don't forget, though, that you do want the cake to be at room temp for serving. 

I like bubble wrap for this purpose. It's cheap and flexible and will fit in any box with minimal trimming. I just tape it to the box.

So keep the cake in the box until you're ready et viola, perfect cake!

a cake for my nephew, IMBC with fondant accents. Not perfect, but one of my favorite cakes.