Sticky Business

I had a great client of mine ask me a few weeks back if I would make a cake for her little girls 2nd birthday. So I would consider this my first business transaction! I was overly excited to do this for her, for one reason. Her taste is a lot like my personal taste. SO I knew with out doubt that this would be a fun, creative project. I ask her how she wants it decorated, and what her theme is and she replies " There is no set theme, I want it colorful, and whimsical"(also adding that she likes the polka dots and stripes) This was music to my ears.  When I'm allowed to kinda make my own decisions and come up with my own creative ideas--- This makes it so much easier to do. I feel like b/c I know her and I know her taste, that this was an advantage.



So I find out how many people are attending. And she says between 30-40. I still am not exactly sure how to figure out how much cake is enough, but really who can ever tell right? Well after all I'm NO professional. Just a girl with a hobby.

I had to brain storm for a bit to come up with something. I knew I wanted multi-colored. But I really struggled with the idea of going with pastels(since she is only 2), or the primary bright colors. I decided to go with the rainbow colors. I felt like it was still child-ish enough, since it reminded me of CRAYONS! :-)

Anyways, I decided to do a 3 layer cake. This was my very first attempt with more than 2 layers. I did the 8 inch cake for the bottom layer. It was the rainbow chip with strawberry and lemon icing filling. The middle layer was 6 inch chocolate with strawberry filling. And the top layer (which was pretty much just a smash cake for the baby) was a 4 inch strawberry cake. I decided to try my hand at the butter cream icing for the entire cake. I have to get in a mental state to know that it will never be as smooth as fondant, and surely isn't as durable. Having said that, it tastes a hundred times better! I'll still do some work with the marshmellow fondant, but I really would like to work on perfecting my buttercream skills. Especially for things that are so decorated. It's not quite so obvious that it isn't perfectly smooth. I did use the fondant for my decorations. If you don't already know, the fondant is white to begin with so each color was "dyed" by me.

I decided to take some pictures of the cake as I was building it once it was iced. It's kind of neat to look back at it now, and see it transform.

This is after 2 layers of the buttercream frosting. (which I make myself. It's SOOO  yummy!

 These are the fondant polka dots and a few large circles that I colored, and put on. Already makes a huge difference! It helps to cover up blemishes and oopsies too!

Finally, after a long day of working on this cake it is finished! I asked husband to put in the butterflies and flowers for me.

Now, as for the butterflies, flowers, "J'' and ribbon, none of that is edible! I would much rather buy and used it to decorate. After all, that's all we're aiming for here! While I think it's extremely impressive when people can make everything out of the fondant and gum paste, no one ever eats it anyways. So why not save a ton of time and energy!! 

All in all, my client informed me that she loved the cake and it was easy to decorate with! Perfect!!! I'm so happy to have had the oppertunity to do it for her. I love the practice!