Two words . . . "crumb coat" (slight cringe). Crumb coating is completely and absolutely neccesary. It took forever to crumb coat it but I got it done and I'm glad I did. This has to be the cutest cake ever. It is very simple and easy to make. The main body of my dinosaur split down the middle but with a little frosting, I "glued" it back together. For a more homemade taste, I suggest using the chocolate cake recipe on the back of the Hershey's Cocoa box. Heavenly!!! I will post a picture soon.

This is great..i am not even down with it yet and i know it will turn out great. Betty Crocker offers a video that goes along with this cake to make decorating it a breeze. I have done the butterfly cake from them as well and it was a huge hit. Simple, simple, simple, but gives a very professional look. Pictures soon to come.

I used 8" pans but altered the sizes using the templates as a guide enlarging the tail and head/neck. I made the tail curving with the rim of the cake thus having little to toss. I used Dunken Hines Moist- devils food cake from box. Made my own butter cream frosting (1/3 c butter whipped add 2c conf. sugar slowly 1/2c at a time. Then mixing together 1.5tsp vanilla + 1T milk then add 2c conf. sugar slowly. Mix in food coloring of your choice. I used M&M's for the spots, Chocolate icing writting reserve 1/2c of icing add 1 tsp coco powder mix in small ziplock massaging the bag then cut a small hole in corner!! Use a saftey pin to be percise ;) A marshmellow for the eyes and one rolled to define. Those are the only changes I made and the moms are just raving! I LOVE this recipe!!

I made this for my sons 2nd birthday. It was a HIT. I started to put a "crumb coating" frosting on it and put it in the fridge for approx. 30 minutes. That was more than enough to harden the frosting. Then when I realized time was short, I simply used hot water and an icing knife and smoothed out the icing that was on there. It was great. I used chocolate chips for spots and little spikes on this back. There was one party goer who thought it would be nice if the dinosaur had some "poop"... The kids thought that was gross but when they realized it was chocolate chips, they ate it up!

Very easy to make and decorate. I used the banana cake recipe from this site and used M&Ms to decorate.

This was a great cake and it was super easy to make! My kids loved it!