Children's Birthday Cakes

This is a retrospective post, and not about the healthiest of family food, but one I simply must share.  While the creative flair of motherhood has taken many journeys from sewing, knitting and even scrapbook paper types of decorating, I never thought I’d try cake decorating.   I guess until it came to my own kids birthdays.

 

I wasn’t until Summer’s 3^rd birthday that I gave it a real go.  She wanted a fairy garden party and a cake to match.  After what seemed hours of internet searching and creative visualisation I came up with the plan.  A green garden filled with colourful flowers, butterflies, ladybirds, leaves, toadstools and of course a pretty fairy on top.

 

The cake itself was Summer’s requested chocolate cake and the icing was buttercream with fondant decorations.  I found a fantastic buttercream recipe for the Thermomix at Gastronomy which includes copha so it holds well in warm weather and is great for piping, etc.  I’m a little reluctant to use food colouring so the colours are quite light on this cake (but watch this progress in subsequent cakes!)

Summer was delighted in her cake and the requests for further cakes rolled on from here….

 

The next cake was my niece Layla’s 3^rd birthday.  She was having a ballerina party so I had the perfect cake in mind.  A more formal design something like I remembered from the old Women’s Weekly Children’s Cakebook.  Pale pink with dainty ballerinas.  It was a basic buttercake inside made as always in the Thermomix but my favourite part was the layers inside.  Three layers filled with pink buttercream so it looked really pretty when sliced.

 

My assistant in the kitchen Miss Summer!

 Again, another happy little customer….

 

 

The third cake was more Finn’s 1^st birthday and we went with a theme that suited him and his name.  A beach scene with a dolphin in the waves and a retro surfboard on the beach.  And this cake was my favourite.  An Orange and Chocolate Almond cake.  Quite rich yet not too heavy but just devine in taste.  And the colours of the chocolate was set off well by the blue icing (and notice my depth of colour getting a bit heavier!)

 

From here the latest creation was from a friend’s little girl Alexis’s 3^rd birthday.  Her request was a Dora cake with a strawberry and cream filling.  I could envisage the design immediately.  Bright, bold colours (way heavier on the food colouring than I’ve ever dared to go!), with flowers and colourful dots for Dora to explore through, with Map of course.  My biggest worry was the strawberries and cream inside and would it stay fresh if I made the cake the day before.  With some trusty internet searching my fears subsided and the outcome was just fine. 

Another happy birthday girl!