Cake or Death?: baby shower

Showing posts with label baby shower. Show all posts

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Beach Baby Shower Cake

We are still in the midst of baby shower season around here, and the most recent honoree was my friend Meghan. Her shower had a beach theme (perfect for our warm LA winters!) so I made her a seashore cake to celebrate.

I found a great seashell candy mold at Michael's that had 5 different designs, so I was able to make a wide variety of chocolate seashells in a short amount of time. I mostly stuck to neutrals like brown and beige, but also threw in some blues, yellows, and pinks. The pearls are fondant balls rolled in silver and bronze luster dust, all set on a board covered in graham cracker "sand."

The cake topper was an oyster shell made out of fondant, and hand-painted with food coloring. This was actually one of my favorite designs I've made recently, and because so much of the decorating could be done in advance, it was relatively stress-free.
The cake itself was a butter cake with a strawberry and whipped cream filling, and I thought it could have tasted better--I foolishly tried a new recipe and didn't love it, to say the least. But overall it was a success and it was such a pleasure to be able to celebrate my friend in this way!

P.S. Y'all are awesome with your camera suggestions! I am on the brink of buying one this week, and rest assured it will make an appearance on the blog the moment I do. Many, many thanks!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Baby, You're A Rock Star Shower Cake

Something's in the water round these parts, because all of my friends are either new mothers or expecting. Downside: being (blissfully) left out of dirty diaper and breastfeeding discussions. Upside: baby showers and the desserts that go along with them! (Oh, and the resulting babies are a pretty big upside too.) This past weekend we celebrated my friend Jane and her soon-to-be-son, and I got to do the cake for the shower.

Jane is doing a rock & roll theme in her nursery, so the shower theme was ROCK-a-bye Baby, with stars and music note decorations. I decided to roll with the star theme for the tiered cake I made:
The cake is chocolate with layers of mint buttercream. The blue and white material is fondant, and the brown is chocolate plastic. The plaque is white chocolate, and the stars on top are gumpaste.

The stars were yet another example of something that seems awesome in my head, but could use a dress rehearsal before I attempt it on a cake. The wire I had wasn't the right thickness to support the stars like I wanted, and they kept spinning around in ways that aggravated the OCD side of me that wanted them just to stay put. I don't know that gumpaste was the right choice--next time I might try fondant, and definitely use a sturdier gauge of wire.

The woman of the hour, the cake, and yours truly, right before we cut it. I'm bummed that this picture is blurry, but it's too cute not to post.

And the inside, with a blue buttercream layer just for fun:

Speaking of baby shower cakes, one of the first large cakes I made (and one of my first posts on this blog!) was a baby shower cake about 3 years ago. It's funny--and surreal--to look back on it now and see how much I've learned and grown as a baker and a blogger during this time, and of course it's even crazier to think about the baby from that shower, who is now a full-on walking, talking little person. Time flies, and I'm so grateful to have these occasions to help us celebrate milestones.

Friday, May 22, 2009

Butterfly Cupcakes and the Tijuana Turtle Effect

So my boss Esti has a theory about miniature desserts we call the "Tijuana Turtle Effect." Observe:

One miniature butterfly cupcake is pretty cute.

Three mini butterfly cupcakes are kind of darling.
But a huge spread of dozens and dozens of mini butterfly cupcakes, arranged wing to wing? UNBEARABLY ADORABLE. This, my friends, is the Tijuana Turtle Effect.

As she explains it, it's like when you go to Tijuana and see these stalls selling hundreds of small bobble-headed turtle figurines. The sheer volume of the teensy turtles hypnotizes you into thinking they're just the cutest things you've ever seen, and pretty soon you won't be happy until you own a Tijuana turtle for yourself. Of course, you get home and it's not nearly as cute without its brethren--but that is the lesson of the Tijuana turtles. We've found this also holds true for all types of miniature desserts. No matter how cute something looks, it invariably looks twelve times cuter when surrounded by hundreds of clones. I made these butterfly cupcakes for my friend Heather's baby shower. Citrus flavors are her favorite, so I did lemon cupcakes with four different flavors of citrus curd inside. The green ones are key lime, the pink are pink grapefruit, the yellow are lemon, and the orange are (you guessed it) orange. Each is topped with vanilla buttercream and a white chocolate butterfly.
Arranged at the shower:
So the next time you're not so pleased with the appearance a dessert you've made, simply make a few dozen more and arrange them side by side. I guarantee they will look way cuter, and if you're still not pleased, you now have a ton of dessert with which to comfort yourself. Win-win!