whale birthday cake

For the past few years I've been making celebration cakes for my friend Irene, including her baby shower cake, her baby's first birthday cake (a smash cake and a tiered cake for her guests, as well as Korean Hanbok cookies!), and now, a cake for her baby's second birthday!

It's pretty much tradition that I made her a nectarine and cream cake (it all started with her baby shower cake!), but this time she wanted a strawberry and banana cake for baby! She wanted a whale cake to go with the nautical theme, and then I would make a second larger cake for the guests (which would be a nectarine and cream cake, of course!)

Somehow I forgot to take pictures of the cake and the filling, but you'll have to trust me when I tell you that I made two 6-inch vanilla cakes (recipe in my book!), sliced them in half horizontally to give me four layers, and then filled each layer with freshly whipped cream and sliced strawberries and bananas. Then I whipped up a batch up buttercream, tinted it sky blue, and did a quick crumb coat with it before smoothing it out, chilled it in the fridge, and then doing a final smooth coat on top.

Then it was time to add the whale details! A few days previously, I had made some fondant pieces to decorate with - the white ribbed piece for the whale belly ...

... two round pink circles for cheeks ...

and then I piped the eyes and mouth using black frosting with a small round tip.

Next I added two blue fondant whale flippers, and the final touch was fondant pieces for the water coming out of the whale's spout!

Now, I had modeled the cake after a picture of a whale cake that Irene had sent me, but after I was done I wasn't sure if it was fully apparent that this was supposed to be a whale. In fact, after I was done assembling my cake, my 8-year old son walked by and asked, "What is that? Why does it have a beard?"

Hmmmmm...

Anyway, Irene did a fantastic job with the food and decorations for the party! Everything was beautiful and delicious! Too bad the whale cake melted in the hot sun though! Aaack! By the time it was time to cut the cake, the whale looked like it had bangs made out of a wave of frosting! (I'm so sorry, Irene!)

Happy Happy Birthday, Aaron!

blue whale baby shower cake

My cousin Yvonne asked me to make a cake for her baby shower a few months ago, and of course I was happy to do it!  We decided on a vanilla cake filled with fresh whipped cream and strawberries, with a blue whale on top (inspired by her current favorite emoticon).  After doing a quick sketch of the whale, I also decided to do blue ombre petal sides on the cake, to resemble waves.

For the vanilla cake, I decided to use the same Sweetapolita recipe that I had used for my son's Spiderman birthday cupcakes this year, except for an 9-inch cake instead of cupcakes.

Once the cake layers were baked and cooled, I whipped up a batch of fresh whipped cream flavored with a hint of vanilla, and also a batch of cream cheese buttercream, which I used to pipe a border to contain the whipped cream.

After filling the piped border with whipped cream, I arranged freshly sliced strawberries in an even layer, and then covered it with more whipped cream.

Then I added my second layer of cake, and then did a quick crumb coat with the cream cheese buttercream.

Then came the fun part - the ombre petal sides!  A while ago I found a great tutorial at Hungry Housewife, and since then have done a purple ombre petal cake, an all-blue petal cake, and a camoflauge petal cake as well!  They are so much fun to do!

Next, I divided my frosting, colored, and filled my piping bags (fitted with a Wilton #12 tip), and then I was ready to do my petal sides.

Then I was ready to pipe my whale.  I started by piping an outline of the whale, then added eyes and the fins, and then filled it in using a star tip.

Then I added a dotted stream of water coming out of his spout, and a congratulatory message to finish it off!

Baby Ethan was born about a month later, healthy and happy!  Isn't he adorable? :) Congratulations Yvonne!

whale cookies

A while back, a friend of a friend asked me to make a Hello Kitty cake for a bridal shower she was throwing.  It turned out that I went to highschool with her!  Then it turned out that she has another friend, who I went to highschool with, who was interested in having me make cookie favors for her son's first birthday party!  What a small world!

The party was going to have a whale theme, with the colors of light blue and light green.  So I ended up making light blue whale cookies, as well as light green "M" cookies (for the birthday boy who's name is Maxwell).  I used my favorite homade sugar cookie and royal icing recipes, but you could of course use store bought.  And for the shapes, I used the whale cookie cutter from this animal set, and the "M" cookie cutter from this alphabet set.

To decorate the whales, I first outlined them with stiff blue royal icing, and then filled them in with runny blue royal icing.  After letting them dry overnight, I outlined them again with stuff blue royal icing, and then added an eye with stuff black royal icing.  At that point I thought that I was done with the whales, but still something seemed to be missing.  Ah, the fin!  So I also piped on a little fin on each whale.

For the "M" cookies, I first outlined them with stiff pale green royal icing, filled them in with runny icing, and then let them dry overnight.  She had liked the way I had decorated my flower and letter bridal shower cookies, so I decorated the Ms the same way by piping the small white dots around the perimeters.

After all of the cookies were completely dry, I packaged each one in a cellophane bag tied with raffia and a custom favor tag.

Happy (belated) birthday Max!  Hope you had a wonderful party and enjoyed the cookies!