Making it Count Tuesday, Birthday Cake!

This week, I'll share a bit about my first big birthday cake project.  My inspiration came from the cake on this blog post while I was searching for ideas for Ellie's Art Party.  I figured it would be an easy first attempt to bake a cake using fondant, but without using it to cover the entire cake.  A local friend is a very talented cake artist and let me borrow her supplies and even gave me the frozen fondant to use!

I didn't take a lot of photos, but pretty much the girls and I spent a long time just kneading the fondant and adding a bit of water, using corn starch on our hands and the countertop.  I added in the gel food coloring to our liking for each of the "ROY G. BIV" colors, and then we made the little balls and the artist palette for the middle.  For the cake, I baked two 9x13 cakes using a boxed cake and adjusting it a little (added sour cream and a bit more oil).  I made one chocolate and one vanilla, and then sliced them in half and stacked them so that half the cake was chocolate and half vanilla.  They needed to be sliced a bit to make them the same height.  I made buttercream frosting using this easy recipe.  I needed three batches to frost between the layers and also frost a light crumb layer (and then refrigerated it), before covering it all with a think layer of buttercream.

The kids all enjoyed this part, putting the balls around the bottom of the cake!

 

I'm having lighting issues while photographing with my iPhone (looks fluorescent here), but here is the finished colorful cake which I put on a piece of cardboard wrapped with the polka dot gift wrap.  I also put some cardstock paper under the cake because it was making the gift wrap soggy!

Here's the whole set-up with colorful fruits and veggies.  We love making the ranch dip using the dry ranch dip seasoning and sour cream.  It tastes great with potato chips and veggies!  Ellie also picked out cheese puffs and I made candy popcorn with sprinkles.  I also made my own punch concoction using Simply Lemonade with lime sherbet.  A pretty yummy, and sugary spread!  Just wish we would've found matching paper goods and put the fruits and veggies in rainbow order, oh the perfectionist in me!

And again, here's the very happy birthday girl!  We're still enjoying some cake treats here and there.

The cake was a lot of work and I'm not sure I'd want to do it again anytime soon, but maybe every few years we can try a fondant cake.  The girls are really becoming good helpers, so they might be taking over cake-making soon anyway!

Thanks for hosting Making it Count, Pam!  Go visit her there for more.