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Monday, February 25, 2008

Baby Shower

My sister-in-law Fawn is a master cake decorator. She actually sells the cakes that she makes and decorates. (Check out her new cake blog http://buttercream.wordpress.com/) When we lived in the same ward, she taught a series of cake decorating classes as enrichment activities. We learned how to split and fill a layered cake, how to make royal icing flowers, and (my favorite) how to use fondant. I really caught the bug when I got to go over to her house to "help her" with a cake project. Mostly, I got to watch her work and learn from the master. (Thanks Fawn!) Let me just tell you that it is harder than it looks to make it look like the pictures in the books, but it is a lot of fun trying.

Last Saturday Monica, Maren and I combined forces and threw a baby shower for someone in the ward who is expecting her first baby (a girl) in April. We decided to make it a "Little Princess" party, and I got to work looking for the perfect cake for the occasion. I looked through my books, and searched the Internet and decided to make a tufted pillow cake with a princess tierra or crown on top of it.

There was a pattern for a crown in one of my books, but it looked way too complicated and intricate. Plus, they wanted me to make it out of royal icing, which I think, is hard to work with.



I went on line found a couple great tierras that I could use as patterns. Here is the one I chose.


I enlarged the picture, printed it out, traced it onto parchment paper, taped the parchment onto an upside down 4 cup Pyrex measuring cup, and piped over the pattern in melted white chocolate. I worried that it wouldn't be strong enough to hold, but once the chocolate dried, it was solid and strong. And as Henry put it when he saw it, "Wow, That's beautiful!"




I made the cake from a Cake Mix Doctor book. It was an almond, cream cheese pound cake and filled it with a strawberry cream. I made and colored the marshmallow fondant ahead of time, and Michal helped me make the butter cream icing. Maren came over and we worked together, rolling out the fondant, putting it on the cake, quilting, painting and tufting, buttoning... and admiring. Like I said, it is harder than it looks to make it look like the pictures in the books, but it is a lot of fun trying. Here are a few pictures of our finished product.







The cake was definitely impressive, but you should have tasted the food! I made a craisin/feta/candied almond green salad with Trader Joe's raspberry dressing. Monica out
did herself with chicken salad sandwiches on mini croissants, feta/pine nut/baby spinach/pesto bow tie salad, and cream cheese toffee and citrus marshmallow dip for the fruit platter.


Everyone went home with warm harts, full bellies,
and a gift from the crown jewels.

18 comments:

Scrappy said...

All I have to say is... AMAZING!!! Oh, and I have to have a girl some day and make you throw me a shower!

mahina said...

that is the MOST amazing cake i have ever seen!! you should go into business making cakes!! WOW!

Erika said...

Wow Alli. You are amazing. What in the world did you do with Isaac while you worked on that? It must have taken hours!

Allison said...

I did it in half-hour (or so) stages while he was sleeping. I made the fondant a couple of weeks ago(it's all sugar, it never goes bad), crown pattern on Sunday, I made the actual crown on Monday, and I baked and shaped the cake on Thursday. Then on Friday night Flint played with Isaac while I actually decorated. I guess I'm crazy to do all that, but I really enjoy the process.

Erin said...

That is truly amazing. Quite an accomplishment. I've always wanted to learn how to decorate cakes and this just increases my desire. :) The shower looks like it was a huge success.

Michal said...

it was even more amazing in person. and yet you kept pointing out the MINUTE flaws. i salute you! i can never make it look like the pictures, and then i am always let down.
you seriously need to come up with a pricing system, because you are going to have people asking you to make cakes all the time now.

Unknown said...

I have an amazing cousin!!! It's not that surprising, though, because you always put 110% of yourself into things like that. Very awesome!

Anonymous said...

WOW, Alli! That is "fancy". I love the idea and beautiful execution. Very very nice!
Fawn

Malia said...

WOW! That cake is absolutely amazing! I think I remember seeing another cake you made when we were at your house for evans birthday before stuart and I got married. It was for another baby shower if I remember correctly. How could you even bare to cut into that beautiful work of art?!

King Klan said...

Wow is right I'm going to have to have you do the girls birthday cake this year because that i awsome

Anonymous said...

So I must tell you the truth, I was so excited to see the cake that I just scrolled down and oohed and aahed over the pics, then I left the message and then I read the blog- Thanks for the shoutout
Fawn

mindyluwho said...

Oh my goodness...that is amazing!

Martin said...

I showed that picture to someone here at work and there expression was "Oh no she didn't!"

She was incredulous. Good job.

Becky said...

You are amazing!! Holy smokes! To be honest the quilted cake looks like the hardest to me. I'm in awe over here.

Katz said...

That's beautiful!

Long time no see!

Macy said...

Alli - that cake is so beautiful! What an amazing shower!

McD said...

Seriously, I am no longer going to visit your blog or Michal's blog. It is always about food, really, really good food. I think you both need to post something that you failed at so the rest of us can feel like we have a chance in life.

Allison said...

My baby and food; what else is there to post about?