Advice for making a cake

[Dk20]

I am not a Baker whatsoever and have a fantastic person who usually makes all our cakes, but its doubtful shell be able to make one ds 1st birthday in June.
So with about 6/7 weeks to go I'm starting to think about doing it myself. If anyone can help I'd be really grateful.
I'm thinking of a chocolate cake with paw patrol decorations (he loves the theme tune) so I need a chocolate cake recipe and help with decorations. Should I buy packs of coloured icing to make the shapes, buy edible cake decorations (are there any that taste nice?) or just buy toys to place on top? So many questions but I do have time on my side to try and figure it out in time.

Have a look on Pinterest and see if there are any that you think you could manage.
You can buy coloured fondant icing and you can also buy white and colour it with (ideally gel) food colour. If you add too much it gets sticky so just add some icing sugar.
Colouring icing is a bit of a pain for big quantities.

If baking isn't a strong point then I would go with little toys to place on top. Obviously not too small as he'll no doubt want to have a chew of them!

Have a look at Cupcake Jemma on YouTube; she has loads of tried and tested recipes and lots of helpful videos about how to decorate too.

Seriously don't go overboard on making your own cake artwork, it'll look like www.cakewrecks.com/ unless you're supremely talented - working in icing is hard and takes practice.

Do like Norma says, make a simple recipe cake with jam in, buttercream icing it, and bang some paw patrol toys on top.

It's MUCH harder than it looks!! I would go for a chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream with a rough finish - much easier than using fondant.
But the toys and then he can use them afterwards. Alternatively, use ones you've already got!

Sorry! BUY the toys, don't but them!!

Definitely dont attempt to make figurines out of icing! I bought paper cut out paw patrol pictures that could be stuck in with cocktail sticks - cheaper than plastic figurines. If you look for "paw patrol cake toppers" on ebay or amazon you'll see lots of different options.
Make a sponge cake, roll out some premade fondant, stick the toppers on and put a ribbon round the bottom. Obviously not as good as a professional cake but very acceptable for a 1 year old.

Oh I also wouldnt bother with edible cake decorations. They always taste bad and are just lumps of food colouring and sugar - I wouldnt want to feed that to a baby

I'd go for a chocolate cake with buttercream and possibly something like chocolate kitkats/fingers around the edge (it hides a lot!).Then add some Paw patrol figures and a ribbon if possible. A bit like this pigs in mud cake but not with pigs...
www.sundaybaking.co.uk/2013/03/31/pigs-in-mud-cake-mississippi-mud-cake-recipe-with-kit-kats/