Lilly's 5th Birthday

My god daughter is 5 years old, wow does time fly by... My sister and brother in law threw a huge bash for Lilly. Unfortunetly I had to miss part of the party because my association work had me traveling to a meeting on Sunday night. I was very sad to miss seeing the cake cutting and Lilly's reaction to seeing her cake but I made it in time to eat the cake and the other yummy food so all was not lost. It was great seeing friends and family as well. The story behind this cake is... Lilly really wanted a backyardigan's cake again this year. I really didn't want to make another backyardigan's cake... So Aunt Amy planted seeds of cake idea's in lilly head. After a few months lilly asked me to make her a barbie cake for her birthday. Yeah!! I've been waiting to do a barbie cake. Lilly's request was that it looked like Gabrielle from high school musical. O.K. No problem... so I thought. After looking in only a few stores after the holiday's I couldn't find the doll anywhere. To make life easier and in the interest of saving myself time hunting for a barbie- I bought it on-line. I practiced making the skirt for one of my christmas cakes. I was ready to go.

This cake did come together easily. The entire cake is buttercream except for to top of her dress. I baked her skirt in the paper chef glass measuring bowl and make another 8" cake. Put the 8" on the bottom and cut around to make it fit. This gives just enough room so barbie's feet could be lowered a little more. I wrapped barbie's legs in saran wrap and slipped her into the cake. I carved a little of the cake from the top to make her skirt a little more rounded. Used Maroon food coloring and piped lines and used tip 16 to make star, tip 2 to dot the stars with white. I wasn't sure what to do about the writting for the cake. I knew I didn't want to put it on the skirt of the dress but I also didn't want to just write on the cake board. So I decided to be a little cheezy and I printed out a Happy Birthday sign similar to the HSM lettering and slipped it under the plastic of the cake board. I'm happy with the way it turned out since I usually feel that my writting ruin's my cakes...

The start of the barbie cake

1/2 naked barbie...

Prior to smoothing the icing

Almost done...Just needed the ribbon around waist

I seat belt all of my cakes for transport...

Sweet 16

My Cousin Ashley turns 16 this month. I can't believe it. She will be driving soon. Yikes! Time flies!!! Good luck on your permit test Ash...

Ashley's cake was three layers- two chocolate, one vanilla. I forgot to put the paper boards under each cake. I was hoping it didn't collapse prior to the party. How could I have forgotten to support the structure of the cake??? I'm a little out of practice... I'm getting back into the swing of things.

The pink and brown circles were Satin Ice fondant. The cake was covered with buttercream. I got the idea for the cake from cakecentral.com. I cut the monogram letter by tracing letters I printed from word- I can't remember the font name at the moment... The letters were more then a challenge then I anticipated. I didn't really have a sharp knife to cut around, next time I think I'll pull out a razor blade. It will likely make the edges a little cleaner. Overall I was happy with the way they turned out. The pink plaque is a 50/50 mix of gum paste and fondant, next time I'll use complet gum paste to make the plaque stronger.