monkey baby shower cake

I can't believe that I'm only now writing about this baby shower cake that I made for my friend Cindy my last year, and next week her baby is turning ONE already! How fast time flies!

Since the baby would be born in the Year of the Monkey, she wanted a monkey cake, so a few weeks before the baby shower I started making a little fondant monkey for the topper. To see the steps, you can check out this monkey cake that I made previously, except this time I added a little pink fondant bow!

For the cake itself, I made a 6-inch vanilla cake, filled with freshly whipped cream and fresh sliced strawberries (sorry, forgot to take pictures!) and then frosted it with pink cream cheese buttercream. I usually do a quick crumb coat, then let it chill for 30 minutes in the fridge, and then do a final coat, smoothing it out with an offset spatula.

To finish it off, I piped a white beaded border along the bottom, and the baby's name, Kailie, along the side of the cake.

And then it was time to add the fondant monkey topper!

I added a little buttercream to the bottom of the monkey topper, just to secure it in place.

Hope you enjoyed your baby shower, Cindy!

yellow ruffle lemon cake filled with lemon whipped cream and fresh blueberries

Speaking of reconnecting with high school friends (which I mentioned in my last post), sometime last summer I also made this yellow ruffle cake for my friend Bernice from high school, who was hosting a baby shower for her sister Tiffany! She wanted to emulate a blueberry cheesecake that was a favorite of her sister's, so we decided on a lemon cake with blueberry whipped cream, similar to this cake. (Although now that I look at the pictures, I totally forgot to make a blueberry whipped cream, and ended up making a whipped cream with fresh blueberries instead! OOPS! I'm so sorry, Bernice!)

Anyway, for the lemon cake I used the vanilla cake recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book, and added grated lemon zest to the batter (instead of the extracts). I baked them into two 8-inch cake pans, let them cool, and then cut them in half horizontally (giving me 4 cake layers). Then I filled each layer with fresh whipped cream and fresh blueberries.

For the frosting, Bernice wanted a ruffle cake similar to this one, except we decided to go with buttercream instead of whipped cream since it was going to be a hot day! Since I knew the cake would be covered with ruffles, I only covered the cake with a quick crumb coat of yellow buttercream (recipe also in my book!).

Then I used a disposable pastry bag fitted with a petal tip to pipe the ruffles, starting in the middle of the cake and piping continuous rings towards the outer edge of the cake. (A nice revolving cake stand works great for this! Or, you could use a lazy susan.)

Then I continued piping all the way down the sides of the cake.

Here's a view from the top, isn't it pretty?



I do think that this technique with buttercream gives a slightly different look than when done with whipped cream though, as buttercream gives slightly smoother ruffles while whipped cream gives more textured ruffles. But both effects are still very pretty.

Anyway hopefully the blueberry whipped cream debacle turned out okay. (Sorry again, Bernice!)

Happy baby shower, Tiffany!

giraffe baby shower cake

A few months ago, my neighbor and good friend Cindy was helping to plan a baby shower for one of her friends, and she asked me to make a small baby shower cake for the dessert table. It wouldn't be for the the 100+ guests to eat, rather a little cake for the parents-to-be to bring home and enjoy. Since the baby shower theme colors were yellow and gray, we decided on a 6-inch yellow cake with gray letters and piped beaded border. And a little giraffe fondant topper for the top!

Inspired by the fondant work by Paola's Creations, I set out to make my fondant giraffe. I've only done a few fondant toppers in the past (an elephant with balloon, a mustached baby, and "BABY" letters), so I was excited to be making a giraffe!

First I tinted my fondant with a combination of lemon yellow and golden yellow gel-based food coloring. After kneading the coloring into the fondant to get an even tone, I roughly formed the giraffe's pieces.

For the head, I made ears and added a light brown fondant for the muzzle, and dark brown tinted fondant for the little tuft of hair. Then I used an edible food marker to add his eyes and nostrils.

Then I added dark brown fondant to the feet and a dark brown tuft of hair, and then light brown fondant for the spots and antlers. And then I could assemble it!

Isn't he cute?!

I also made some green fondant leaves for the giraffe to sit on, to add a little more color to the cake.

For the cake, we had decided on strawberry shortcake, so I baked up my go-to vanilla cake (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!), cut each layer in half horizontally, and filled it with freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

Then I made a batch of yellow buttercream and covered the top and sides of the cake with it.

I smoothed out the frosting out with an offset spatula, and then piped a quick beaded border along the bottom with gray buttercream.

After adding lettering and securing the fondant giraffe with a bit of buttercream, I thought it was so cute as-is that I almost didn't want to add the fondant leaves!

But in the end I added them anyway, for a pop of color.



The best thing about making fondant toppers is that the recipient can keep it indefinitely! Just wipe the frosting off of the bottom, and you can keep it on a bookshelf or something, as long as it's not in the sun and in is a cool dry place.

Hope you had a wonderful baby shower, CC and Ryan!

circus carnival cake with fondant mustache baby topper

Remember this chevron baby gender reveal cake that I did for my friend Monica? Well when it was finally time for the baby shower last fall, they asked me to make the baby shower cake as well! The shower was going to have a circus theme, so Monica sent me a pictures of of circus cakes that she wanted me to replicate. The two main attractions of the cake would be the toppers - one would be a fondant baby with a mustache, and the other would be a fondant lion.

For the fondant baby, I shaped the baby's head and body out of fondant colored with ivory gel-based food coloring, and also rolled out pieces for the arms and feet. For the diaper, I rolled out a long strip and wrapped it around the baby.

And for the face, I used food markers to draw on the eyes, mustache and smile. 

For the lion, I colored fondant with orange and golden yellow food coloring, and then rolled them out. For the head I used a circle cookie cutter, and for the man I used a flower cookie cutter, but for the rest I just used a knife to cut out the shapes that I needed (the bangs, tail, ears, etc).

The cake itself was a chocolate cake, filled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. You've seen me do this several times before, so I only have an instragram photo of this part :)

The top tier of the cake was a 6-inch cake, which I covered with cream cheese buttercream.

I used this basketweave tip to pipe circus-like verticle stripes with red frosting.

The bottom tier was a 10-inch cake, which I covered in blue cream cheese buttercream, and then piped a rainbow border along the bottom of the cake. (I originally only did red, orange, yellow, and green, but it ended up looking more "candyland" than "circus", so later on I also added blue to the border).

To support the top tier of the cake, I used five bamboo skewers - four of them were cut to the height of the cake for the top tier to rest on, and the fifth was full length and would go through the center of the top tier, to ensure that it didn't fall or slide off.

Then I piped large rainbow polka dots to the bottom tier, before assembling the tiers and adding the toppers. (I also added a little curl to the top of the baby's head, at the request of the mom-to-be!)

When I went to deliver the cake to the baby shower, I was blown away by all of the circus-themed decorations - everything was so adorable! From the mustache tablecloth, to the giant marquee circus letters at the dessert table, the circus-themed games, photo booth, and table decorations, everything looked perfect!

Congratulations Sofi!

chevron "beau or bow" cake for baby gender reveal

I was first introduced to Monica a few years ago, when my friend Cindy was hosting a baby shower with Monica and they asked for my help in making red velvet cupcakes with white chocolate tiaras. Since then, I have made goodies for Monica several times! There was the piggy cake and  pool party piggy cookies that I made for her daughter's birthday one year, and also a mini Hello Kitty cake a few years ago (that I haven't yet blogged about). And a couple more goodies that I haven't yet blogged about (posts to come!)

So when she asked me to make a baby gender reveal cake for her friend who was expecting, I was excited to be a part of it! And the funnest part was that only the doctor and I knew the gender of the baby, not even the parents-to-be knew! Monica had to drop off a top-secret reveal envelope at my house, which was sealed by the doctor and never opened ... until I got my hands on it! :)

Monica's friend already knew she wanted a chocolate cake that looked like this one, except with yellow chevron instead of blue. I wasn't sure if I liked that the placement of the mustache and bow and letters were at the top of the cake instead of the middle though, so I sketched it out to help me decide.

I baked up two 8-inch homemade chocolate cakes (recipe in my new book!), and sliced them in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. Then I filled them with freshly whipped cream (tinted blue or pink based on the information in the secret envelope!), and then covered the top and sides with two coats of cream cheese buttercream.

I piped a quick shell border on the top and bottom of the cake, and then got to work piping the mustache, bow, and wording.

The final touch was piping the yellow chevron - I used a Wilton #5 tip, and just kind of did a freehand chevron design.

And then it was done! I had been a little worried about the chevron coming out crooked or uneven, but in the end I thought it looked pretty good!

The only thing I wish I could re-do was the top shell border - it was a super hot day, so my cream cheese buttercream started to melt on me! Needless to say, after a few quick pictures, the cake went back in the fridge to set!

And for the gender reveal on the inside of the cake?

It's a boy!