pink owl birthday cake

My friend Diana has a daughter named Naomi who loves owls.  So when she asked me to make the cake for Naomi's 4th birthday party, I had to make an owl cake!  Luckily for me, her husband designed an owl logo specifically for the birthday party (he also designs all the cards at their own stationery business, bumble ink!), so I used his logo as inspiration for the cake!

A few weeks before the party, I started brainstorming and sketching.  I finally decided to just do a simple pink cake with the pink and white owl logo, a white shell border, and vertical piped pink sides (sides similar to the carnival birthday cake that I did a while back).

The birthday girl requested "a vanilla cake with strawberries", and so I set out to make a 12x17 vanilla cake, filled with strawberries and whipped cream.  I used my go-to vanilla cake recipe, which is moist and fluffy because it calls for whipped egg whites which are carefully folded into the batter.

Once the cakes were baked, I started on the filling.  I sliced up my strawberries, and then whipped up 3 batches of freshly whipped cream.

Then I piped a border of whipped cream on the perimeter of the bottom layer of cake, and then filled it and smoothed it with an offset spatula.  Next came a layer of the sliced strawberries, arranged in neat rows.

After topping it with more whipped cream and then the second layer of cake, I whipped up 3 batches of cream cheese buttercream, and set a bit of it aside (since I would be neededing white frosting).  To the rest of the frosting, I added a combination of Americolor "fuschia" and "soft pink" to get the perfect color of pink. Then I did a quick crumb coat over the entire cake, and then a second smooth coating on the top.  And for the sides, I piped the vertical stripe pattern with a large basketweave tip.

Then I piped a shell border on the top and the bottom, and finally, the owl!

I also added a birthday message by piping with melted chocolate, but as I was piping I started to question my decision to use melted chocolate, because my piping tip kept getting clogged!  And the piping kept coming out in uneven spurts!  I was also annoyed with my letter spacing.  I tried to fix and doctor the birthday message as best as I could, but after a while I realized I needed to stop messing with it and just let it be, otherwise I was going to mess it up even more (sigh).

But in the end, all that worrying went away because Naomi loved her cake!  I've never seen her so excited!

She even spent a portion of the party perched on a chair in front of her cake, staring at it as if she was guarding it!  She was so adorable!

Hope you had a happy birthday, Naomi!  We love you!!!