This cake was a lot of fun to make. And when something looks "easy" I always underestimate the time it takes to do it the first time........because I haven't thought up all the ways to make the cute stuff it would include. Now if I do this cake a SECOND time (and I hope to) - I will know what I am planning to do ahead of time and it will go more quickly.
When Stacey first talked about her daughters slumber party cake we thought we were going to recreate the iCarly laptop cake I did for my friend Julie. However, Stacey is now like me and she will google the theme of what she is thinking. This time it was .......... slumber party cake pictures........and when she did it this she got hits on some super cute cakes and asked if I could do them.
I started with a plain old white iced cake. This cake had no real need for fondant sides because the perfectionistic smoothness was not going to matter anyway.
However, a super bright and cute base would be important and Stacey said Gabby really liked the bright pink colors. Done. Usually I wait to put the base trim on just because I can be messy with my hands and hit the icing and make myself crazy because I dent it. No one wants a cake that looks like their kids stuck their fingers in the icing.......but I figured I was safe - and honestly the bright pink inspired my mood. Weird?
Next up were the slumber party attendees. I knew there were 7. I also knew from the millions of slumber parties we have had at our house now that if you do something that represents a "figures" on a cake it is helpful to try to represent them for each attendee if possible. 50 Boy Scout pinewood derby cars I can't make - 7 slumber party goers I can. So I did.
I rounded some heads and made some hair to pop on. I didn't worry too much about matching up colors for hair to the girls slumbering - the base was bright pink so things on the cake needed to be bright too - having red heads, flaming orange heads, blonds, and brunettes just made sense.
The hair was a challenge at first. The original cake I was referring to for the idea has beautifully cute hair. My first attempts to make hair looked more like a Max Headroom skull cap. Remember Max Headroom? He creeped me out. Or the bad guy from one of my favorite kid shows - Lazy Town - what was his name? Well anyway - what I mean is that my hair totally stunk. How did they get the really cute hair? It reminded me of what kids make with a playdoh press.......the playdoh press we owned was currently under 2 feet of snow in our backyard playset so that wouldn't work.........but I did have a garlic press.........so I cleaned it and tried and guess what!!
It totally worked!! I was so thrilled that it worked I immediately stuck the hair onto the head so that it didn't fall apart. Of course then I noticed they were all starting to have short hair. So I tried making longer hair......and guess what!! It totally worked!!
Sometimes I make myself kinda dance in place and giggle and high five myself. And that is just what I did - which drew the attention of my 5 year old in the other room........who came in to investigate and when I explained just how brilliant I was with making hair he said, "Maudy I do that with my playdoh".........sigh......but then my 11 year old came in and said, "Oh My Gosh Mom that is so GREAT!" and meant it and I went back to kinda dancing in place and giggling and I high fived her.
Then things kinda got to going faster. I put the heads on the cake and made some bodies. At first I was thinking the bodies would be more realistic - then I thought how I was just going to cover them up with blankets so why bother?
At this point I just needed to make the cake fun looking. The only real challenge was figuring out a way to decorate 7 sleeping bags to look individual with the same 3 colors. That is what all those tiny cookie cutters I have been collecting my entire life comes in handy for.
I popped on a few flowers in matching colors of the border to make the white sides a little less empty........wrote a cute message on the bottom to the Birthday girl because there was no room on the actual cake........made a few juice boxes and added some popcorn all over the cake - some slippers tossed in and Tah Dah!!
My understanding is the cake was a hit. Each of the party attendees picked out who they were on the cake and Stacey was so sweet to "wrap up" their girl to take home as a party favor. Smart move because those things are pure sugar and eating all that would have kept them awake for hours!!
This cake was Chocolate Chocolate Chip with a Vanilla Buttercream icing and Vanilla fondant for decorations. So Fun!!
I was practicing making brides and cakes that look wedding like. This is what I came up with.
The cake is not real - just a piece of styrafoam. Primarily because I was going to use this as an "example" of what I could create in person form for any brides who might ask when doing a tasting.
And then I was asked by a friend, who owns the Wedding Gallery here in town, to do a tasting for a few of her brides and it was nice to have to take with me.
Her eyes are a little googly and strikingly blue, but it is a cartoon figure so it goes. What I want to do is keep working on this and turn them a little less googly eyed and maybe a bit more realistic eyed (if that doesn't make sense then just don't worry about it - it is Pattispeak).
Draping fondant is fun too - I thought the train would be the easiest part of making the brides gown, but it is funny how dang picky you can get trying to drape the train right and not split the fodant. Still FUN!!
