Cute Plaid 1st Birthday Cake

You can't go wrong with a cute plaid patterned cake and a happy green dragon.  It was gluten-free chocolate cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.

Pumpkin Cake

Who loves pumpkin cake?  This cake wasn't pumpkin-flavor on the inside - it was alternating layers of strawberry and vanilla cake.   Plus a little matching smash cake to go with it.

Jungle Animal Cupcakes

How cute are these Jungle Animal cupcakes for a 1st birthday?

Where the Wild Things Are Party

Last week, I posted a cake based off of the book Where the Wild Things are.  I'm so excited to share with you the party that my client threw.  Just to be clear, I didn't put this party together - these details were all put together by my client.  I was so amazed by her details and she let me share her photos.

 She purchased some of the items from Etsy.  Now look how cute that birthday boy is!

 Those straws say "I'll drink you up" and I love the "Wild Eats"

Where the Wild Things Are Cake

Having a 3 year old, I thought I knew most of the kids books around.  Somehow, I had missed this lovely illustrated book, Where the Wild Things Are.  The characters are just so amazing so I had lots of fun creating the design of this cake.

 My client even surprised me and bought the book for my daughter to enjoy - how sweet is that! The cake was alternating layers of strawberry vanilla and vanilla bean cake with strawberry buttercream.

1st Birthday: Sandra Boynton Cake

Whether you are a grandparent, aunt, uncle, parent, caregiver or teacher, you are probably familiar with the Sandra Boynton series of books. They are fun and wonderfully illustrated - every child has their favorite book.  My daughter's favorite is "Night-Night, Little Pookie".

I had a request for this fun book, MOO, BAA, LA LA LA! for a little girl named Lola - this was fun!

Here's what I came up with and I loved how the name Lola worked with this book title!  What's your favorite Sandra Boynton book?

1st Birthday Cake: Sesame Street Cake

I sure love making Sesame Street themed cakes!  Here's a simple and fun design for a 1st birthday cake.

My daughter's 2nd birthday is a couple months away and Cookie Monster will be the main theme of the dessert table.  I'm so excited and found so many great ideas on Pinterest.

Hot Air Balloon Cake

I had the pleasure of creating this fun hot-air balloon themed 1st birthday cake. 

Here's the lovely inspiration that I was given - isn't that fabulous?

Another view of the cake.  I should also mention that this design was originally done by Jessicakes.  Make sure you check out her awesome blog full of gorgeous cakes and very helpful tutorials.

1st Birthday Cake

My cake designs are usually one-of-a-kind for my clients.  I try not to duplicate any previous cakes so everyone has their own custom details.  In this case, the client wanted the same cake as I previously made, except a bit smaller.

I still made a few slight modifications to the nose and the tail.  Isn't that a cute face?  :-)

 The cake was chocolate sour cream cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream.

1st Birthday Cake: Topsy Turvy Cake

I was given a lovely color palette to create this 1st birthday cake.  I just love how this topsy turvy cake turned out.  Both tiers were chocolate sour cream cake with chocolate swiss meringue buttercream.

Winnie the Pooh Cake

Many of you might know that I just adore Classic Pooh cake designs and my daughter loves her Pooh Bear.  I was excited to do a 1st birthday cake with the modern and more colorful Winnie the Pooh characters.

There is Tigger hiding in the back of the cake.  You can also see how I put my wires in the cake, I've been meaning to put together a blog post about "Should I put wires directly in my cake?"  Let me know what your thoughts are on that.

1st Birthday: Bear Cake Photo Tutorial

Happy Friday everyone!  As promised from my Tuesday blog post, this is the follow-up of the Classic Pooh Bear cake.  I remembered to take some photos along the way with my iPhone.

Step 1:  The Cake:  The cake was 4 layers of 6" round chocolate sour cream and vanilla bean cake.  I placed these on a cardboard cakeboard in the shape of the bottom and legs, so I can transfer it onto the bottom fondant covered cake tier.

Step 2:  Carve while looking at your inspiration.   Usually I have photos on the wall showing all angles of my inspiration, but this one was a little easier with the bear.

Step 3:  Use leftover large cake pieces to fill in the head.  I actually had 2 nice pieces from the mid-body that I was able to use.

Step 4:  Ice with thin layer of buttercream.  I used a thin coat of chocolate swiss meringue buttercream and put in the fridge for about an hour.  Not the exact shade of bear, but tasty!

Step 5: Add thicker coat of buttercream.  Then I added in a thicker layer all around and just used the palette knife to make it look like fur.  I also made sugarpaste ears which I then iced with buttercream.  I used a a lighter shade of buttercream (less cocoa) for the feet and ears.  The eyes, nose, paws and ear details were made out of fondant.

Once it was done, I transferred it onto fondant covered bottom tier

Classic Pooh 1st Birthday Sweet Table

Last week, my daughter Sidney turned 1!  Ever since I did this wonderful Classic Pooh cake, I knew that the theme for her party would be Classic Pooh.  We read lots of the Pooh books and every morning she gives her Pooh doll, Bear, a big hug.

We had a wonderful family BBQ with fabulous weather, a visit to the park and enjoyed the sweet table.

The sweet table included: Lemon sandwich cookies with strawberry cream, homemade fudge with sea salt, triple chocolate brownies, chocolate covered pretzel pieces (those were for me), chocolate dipped rice krispie, cherries, watermelon and a 3D Classic Pooh cake which was chocolate & vanilla.

I will post more photos on Friday of the Bear cake, as I remembered to take step-by-step photos!  See you then!

1st Birthday Cupcake Tower

Another 1st birthday cupcake tower for the blog this week.  The color theme was purple and green for the party and I could create whatever design I wanted.  I came up with this sash-like design for the cupcake tower and the rest of the cupcake tower fell into place.

A view from the top of the tower.  See you Tuesday for some more 1st birthday Sweet Things, I'll be posting photos of my daughter's 1st birthday sweet table.

1st Birthday: Monkey Cake n' Cupcakes

1st birthday parties are such wonderful celebrations.  Here is a fun cupcake tower I made for little Hudson.  His mom said that he is quite a little monkey!

I was so happy how the cake topper turned out - not too busy but with enough bright colors.

Colorful 1st Birthday Cake

I love the color theme of this 3-tier cake for a little girls 1st birthday celebration.  The cupcake is a carved cake also!  My client gave me a photo of the design and gave me this fun color theme of bright avocado green and shades of pink.

Here is another view of the cake.  All 3-tiers were strawberry vanilla cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream.

1st Birthday: Classic Winnie the Pooh Cake

Many people ask if I have favorite cakes that I have made and it is really hard to narrow down a small selection.  However, I have to admit, I really fell in love with this cake design of Classic Winnie the Pooh.

The client said that I could do whatever I wanted for the 1st birthday cake.  I was so excited, as I love Classic Pooh.  I read the ABC book to my daughter every night before bedtime.

The 2-tiers of cake were banana sour cream cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, as the birthday boy, Liam loves banana.

Here is sweet little Liam with his parents blowing out the candle (they had the perfectly matching candle too!)  I also received the most wonderful Thank You card in the mail from them last week - it sure made my day!

1st Birthday: Butterfly Cupcake Tower

Hope everyone is having a great start to their week.  Today I have some sweet butterflies and flowers decorating a cupcake tower to celebrate a 1st birthday.

The cake inspiration was from the party designs created by Barbara Neely designs who you'll find on Etsy.