Monday 14 March 2016

Happy First Birthday My Darling Daughter

Not just a busy week for me, but a busy couple of days. Those of you that know me, know that my beautiful son, darling daughter and my beloved grandmother all share the same birthday the incredibly lucky St Patrick's day 17th March. This is my sons 3rd birthday, my daughters 1st birthday  and my Grandmothers 74th Birthday so we decided to have a joint birthday party this last weekend and William would also have a party next weekend with all his wee friends from preschool. So this weekend I had to prepare 4 cakes, busy, busy, busy!



I have long had an obsession with ladybugs and knew that I ever had a daughter that ladybugs would be a big part of her life and any decorations,  I had already been researching on Pinterest for ages for different cakes in Red colouring and Pink colourings.
 When I found Ladybug 1st birthday decorations in Pinks I was ecstatic and the cakes came to me immediately.


This cake gave me a chance to try out some new some new techniques and a new mould. While the cake was in the fridge to set the crumb coating. I rolled out some pink fondant which I coloured with Americolor Gel food colouring, normally I would always use wilton, but the only purple available in New Zealand is the violet and I don't like the colour that it makes so I bought some Americolor Gels in Pink and Purple ,and I have fallen in love with them so much that my latest order from The Cake Shop I have ordered even more of them I am inlove! I rolled out this beautiful pink and using my Ladybug plunger cutters I cut out hundreds of ladybugs and embossed them as well. Of course I didn't need as many as I cut out but you never know I like to be prepared.







 Using a lovely pre coloured green from Renshaw fondant, I rolled out very thin layer of fondant and using my Wilton Ribbon cutter I cut out 1/4" ribbons and cut them down to 2" in length and rolled them around some straws, I left these to dry over night and the effect is like curling ribbon. I also plunged out some wee stars for also for the side of the cake in the same colour.








Then using some purple fondant, which I coloured using Americolor food colouring, I rolled out nice and thin and again using my Wilton Ribbon cutter with the wavy blade I cut 1.5" wide ribbons then I shortened them to 4" strips. Using a very small about of water I "glued" the 2 ends of the strips together and threaded them onto some spare irrigation piping I had 15mm diametre. I left these on the pipe over night to dry this meant they kept their shape. 














Up the next morning far too early for my liking I was ready to add all my decorations to the cake.
The wee ladybugs around the side with trailing stars. I also decided that the cake needed a border so in the same purple as the ribbons I used my new Pearl rope mould, which I have had for a while but never used. This was the first time and I have to say I love it will definitely be using it again!!

Now for the top the idea was to make a ribbon bow like we use on presents, and to add a little something more I added the green "curling ribbon" randomly placed.
I used some left over butter cream to attach the ribbons, I evenly placed 6 wee ribbons in a circle and then I layered the rest until I ran out of space, I then went around and randomly added in the Green curls. For my first go at this I am pretty impressed with how it came out. Definitely something I will try again.











Happy First Birthday My Darling Daughter, this year has gone too fast hopefully the next year crawls by I need time to recover after making all these cakes.







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