The last week of February and the first week of March are filled with birthday celebrations and fun in our house! This year, my daughter celebrated her fourth birthday on March fourth. About 6 months in advance, she, very specifically, requested that I please make her Strawberry Shortcake's house as her birthday cake. As the day drew nearer, and I started work on the elements of the cake, she would wake up each morning and quiz me on which elements I had completed.
"Mommy, did you make the flowers? Did you make the pink door? It has to have a PINK door" What can I say? She had a very specific vision of what she wanted! However, the day before I started work on the cake, I found inspiration in this Strawberry Shortcake cake. I liked the use of green fondant on the top of the cake to give the look of grass. I had also been wanting to try my hand at fondant ruffle details, so I added those to the design. To keep in line with the birthday girl's vision, I gave the house a pink door and matching round windows. I also added a giant sunflower.
The ruffle was not the only new technique I tried on this cake. I used rice krispie treats covered in royal icing to form the giant strawberry house. For some reason, I have been fearful of working with krispie treats, but it turned out to be very easy! I began to form the strawberry while the treats were still warm and pliable and then smoothed them into place with two pieces of parchment paper. Strawberry Shortcake and Custard are a toy we had on hand. In the end my little girl was very pleased with my blended vision version of her cake!
My son turned one on February 28th. I wanted a tractor/barnyard theme for him...ahhh so nice to have total decision making control :) I went with this hay stack smash cake. The tractor is rice krispie treats covered in fondant. The chicken, pig and baby are gumpaste. The baby came out strange looking and I thought I was working with gumpaste for the diaper, but maybe I grabbed fondant, because the weight of the figure caused the diaper to collapse and gave the baby a big bottom :/ Oh well, my little guy had fun smashing his cake regardless of the odd looking baby!
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