My First Professional Cake

I'm sorry that it has been awhile since I last posted, but I have been incredibly busy.  It just seems that the busyness of life all hits at once.  Thankfully, I have been one busy woman making all kinds of gifts and taking orders from Jilly's Boutique.  I really wouldn't know what to do if I wasn't going 100 miles per hour most days.  On to something fun...

Over Labor Day weekend, I put in over 6 hours in cake baking and decorating.  The Wednesday before, I got a call to make a special first birthday cake for a little girl in our church.  I was very apprehensive as this is the first time I had made a cake for purchase and one of this size!

The theme for the birthday party was a sock monkey.  I sent some picture options for the cake to the Mom.  She choose a tiered cake with polkadots and a fondant monkey.  I had never worked with fondant.  I knew this would test my limits and see what I was truly capable.  If you know me at all, I am always up for a challenge!  Just tell me I can't do something and you have sparked a burning fire within me.


I definitely tackled this project.   Now that I have taken my third course on fondant (after making this cake), I now see how I could have done things differently and easier, but everything is a learning experience.  Well, without further ado, here is the cake that I made with a little smash cake for the birthday girl.

The main cake was a 12 inch cake and an 8 inch cake.  This was enough servings for 55-60 people.  The little smash cake was a three layer 4 inch cake.  I made the dots on the cake, the bow, number 1 and monkey all out of fondant.  Thankfully, fondant is much like clay so I molded it into the shapes I needed.

The cake itself is a buttercream cake.  It might look like a fondant cake, but it is not.  I learned a trick while making this cake.  I never knew that a Viva paper towel could rub out perfections in buttercream and make a cake look like fondant.  I used the following video to teach myself how to do this technique.
 

I didn't make my bow the correct way for this project, but here is a link to the correct way to make a bow topper.

The birthday girl loved her cake.  I was very proud of my first professional cake.  I hope I get the opportunity to make more cakes in the future.  I also hope you enjoyed looking at my cake and learning something new!

Thanks!