By Nora
You may remember a few weeks back that I posted about my intention to make a fondant cake for my daughter's 1st birthday, and I asked all you kind folks to give me advice about working with fondant since I was pretty much a complete novice. And the overwhelming advice was: DON'T use fondant.
Never one to pass up sound advice, I scrapped the fondant idea and decided it would be in my best interest to do something simpler. This idea consisted of baking a cake from a box mix, making my own buttercream frosting, and putting cake balls on top of the cake to give it a whimsical look.
But you want to know the funny thing? This process was NOT SIMPLE AT ALL. Actually, it wasn't so much complicated as it was time consuming trying to perfect the cake ball-creating technique. Luckily, my good friend (and godmother to my child) Alicia was visiting for the week and helped me with everything. The cake baking part was fairly simple, as was the making of the buttercream frosting. I made a double batch of the frosting since I also decided to make the easiest, most delicious chocolate cupcakes in the world in addition to the cake. Alicia handled the actual frosting of the cake and cupcakes. I took on the task of creating the cake balls. The initial cake ball-rolling part was easy enough. Then came the decorating. Oh, sweet lord, the decorating.
This is Alicia making the ladybug heads from junior mints and sprinkles of varying shapes and colors. You can see that there were quite a few rejects already. This takes practice, people. Also notice the two glasses of pinot grigio to Alicia's left. Wine is definitely a crucial part of this process.
And here I am painting eyeballs on the sprinkles with edible marker. Notice the concentration. I think it was about 11:30 PM at this point and all I wanted to do was go to bed. But we persevered.
In the end, here was the end result:
Cute, right? In the end, it was worth it. I would definitely do this again knowing what I know now. But warning: give yourself like 4-5 hours for a project like this. And really have an idea in your head of what you want to do. I have new respect for Bakerella. These bad boys are HARD to create, and hers are always perfect.
And now, just because i'm proud of the birthday "tablescape" (barf, I hate that term) we created, here's a somewhat blurry shot of the finished product.
Eat your heart out, Sandra Lee.
Nora, this is awesome! I am amazed at that cake. I love what you did with it!
Posted by: Caitlin | May 13, 2011 at 12:56 PM
How adorable! I would take this tablescape over anything Sandra Lee makes, even if it's fa-laaa-ver-ful.
Posted by: kirida | May 13, 2011 at 01:13 PM
I love the bugs! And I definitely got a reality check about how long it would take to make cute character cake balls after I made plain ones for the first time.
Posted by: Elsha | May 13, 2011 at 01:40 PM
Oh, I hear ya! When I made my daughter's princess cake, I knew it would take some time, but I never really expected to need 3 full days and half of my refrigerator. Kudos to you for keeping on and creating something simply darling.
And Sandra Lee can kiss it. Tablescape. Bleck.
Posted by: Julie | May 13, 2011 at 02:19 PM
WOW incredibly impressed by the end result! It looks professional!
Posted by: natalie (the sweets life) | May 13, 2011 at 03:14 PM
Oh, my GOSH!!!! Will you make me a ladybug cake? That's about the cutest thing I've ever seen!
Posted by: J | May 13, 2011 at 05:24 PM
Indie says, "Oh cool, can I have that cake!?"
Posted by: lauren | May 13, 2011 at 05:30 PM
These posts are great for my ego, everybody! Thanks so much!
And Lauren, tell Indie I would love to make her a cake. :-)
Posted by: Nora | May 13, 2011 at 05:54 PM
That is a FANTASTIC cake! So adorable!
Posted by: Heather | May 13, 2011 at 06:17 PM
It was marvelous, beautiful, whimsical, AND delicious!!!
Posted by: ellen | May 13, 2011 at 07:47 PM