My Attempt at the Baby Bump Cake

Once again, browsing Pinterest has be in over my head! I have so many things planned for the shower this weekend, and so little time to get them done! Heaven help me, I found a really cute "Baby Bump Cake" pin on Pinterest. I decided to tackle that project today.

I looked at craft stores for a half-ball cake pan but had no luck. I ended up ordering an 8" one from Amazon for about $8. I used two boxes of cake mix for this project. After mixing one box, I made two cupcakes and poured the rest into a 13"x9" cake pan. I used a full box of mix for the half-ball (make sure to grease & flour your ball pan really well!). In addition to boxed mix, I also just used a can of pre-made frosting from the store for the crumb layer.

Here's how I decorated mine:

Step 1: Spread a layer of frosting over your sheet cake.

Step 2: Arrange the ball cake and cupcakes on the sheet cake.

Step 3: Trim away the excess cake on the sides (don't discard or eat that cake yet!).

Step 4: Use the parts of the cake you cut off to fill in some gaps in the "body," using frosting as your glue. Below, you can see the cupcakes before and after I filled the gaps.

Before:

 After:

Step 5: Use the rest of your frosting to create a fairly seamless and smooth cake. The frosting can be very thin. 

Step 6: Use fondant to decorate! You can buy some pre-made at a craft store or cake supply shop. I made my own using this "Rolled Buttercream Fondant" recipe. Originally, I intended to use brown trim like in the original pin, but my brown fondant looked like turds. That wasn't very appetizing, so I scraped that and went with pink.

I have only worked with fondant twice before and still am not at master with it. The surface of my cake has some cracks and stretch marks, but I figure that's just more realistic, right? ;-)

With the cake done, there's not much left for me to do until the morning of the shower. Let's just hope the weather doesn't put a damper on our party... the forecast calls for 8 to 14 inches of snow!

America the Beautiful Cake

I did it!  It's Sunday evening, and I finished my fourth and final entry.

My vision for this cake was to be all about our beautiful country because Southwest Airlines flies domestically and covers almost all of the lower 48 states.  The United States is beautiful.  You can travel around our large country and see rocky beaches, sandy beaches, huge mountains, redwood forests, enormous freshwater lakes, large cities, and quaint towns.  I wanted to try to make my cake to reflect that.

On Friday, I re-purposed the classic birthday cake I'd made and carved it into a map of the United States.  I did it freehand, so it's not perfect, but there's no mistaking what it's supposed to be.

On Friday night, Oliver helped me make another batch of homemade fondant, and we dyed most of it green.   After the kids were in bed,  I rolled it out and did the difficult job of molding it around the cake.  Yup, i did that after working on the Baked Alaska.  I was busy, busy!

Then came the tough but fun part.  Last night (Saturday), I used fondant and made miniature icons to represent a handful of the cities that Southwest flies to.  These are the first four I made.  I made the seashell to represent Southern California (I put it where San Diego would go on my cake map).  I made a miniature hot dog to represent Chicago and a miniature ear of corn to represent Des Moines.  The sun, I used for Southern Florida.

By the time I'd finished, I also made dice for Las Vegas, a mug of coffee for Seattle, the Statue of Liberty for New York, and a Mardi Gras mask for New Orleans.  I added in yellow dots to represent the other cities Southwest flies to, and I made a Southwest airplane for the cake, too.

The cake was all about the beauty of our country's landscape, so I wanted to go somewhere beautiful to photograph it for the contest.  We decided to make the short drive up to Red Rocks Amphitheater and Park.  It's Father's Day, so I snapped a photo of my husband with our kids.  I couldn't have worked all of the hours on these cakes if it wasn't for their support, and I couldn't have had these beautiful pictures without my husband's involvement and help.  Thank you, Family!

Here is the photo I chose for my entry with my "America the Beautiful" cake.

Here is my entry pin on Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066809900/

I've really had fun with this contest.  I'm a competitive person, and I get really excited about contests.  This contest was an absolute blast.  I got to be creative, and I got to bake a ton with my kids.  The photo shoots were the best part, though, because that's when I felt like all my hard work was coming together.

No matter how the contest turns out, I'm glad I spent this week giving it my all.  Happy 41st Birthday, Southwest Airlines!  Thank you for letting me celebrate with you!

#HappyBdaySWA

Southwest Airlines 41st Birthday Cake

I love to travel, I love to bake, and I love Pinterest.  I can't tell you how excited I got when I read that Southwest Airlines was having a cake baking/decorating contest through Pinterest to celebrate their 41st birthday.  The winner receives two roundtrip tickets anywhere Southwest flies!  Not only that, the winner gets to be a guest blogger on their blog site!  Scoop me off the floor because I'm weak in the knees!

For those of you who are interested in the contest, here's my Pinterest pin that links to all of the rules:  http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066776757/

I first heard about the contest on Tuesday, June 12, the day after it started.  I sat down and considered a million and one ideas, and I settled on two.  You see, you can enter as many times as you want, as long as you have a unique cake each time.

My first idea was to make an airplane cake.  No, I'm not talking about putting a picture of an airplane on a cake.  I decided to carve a 3D Southwest airplane out of a cake!  My plan also involved decorating it in fondant.  Now, I've never carved a cake before, and I've never made or used fondant.  The challenge made me more determined.

The first step was to bake the cake itself.  I dug around for a recipe and got to baking straight away.  Oliver had a great time helping me bake, but the cake was a total flop.  The cake was so soft and moist that it wouldn't really hold together.  As it cooled, it sunk in the middle.  There was no way I could carve it into an airplane.

Rather than waste another half dozen eggs, I decided just to go to the supermarket and buy a $1 box of cake mix.  It turned out much firmer, which is exactly what I wanted for carving.  I finished baking the second cake before bedtime on day one.  As it baked, Oliver and I got to work on mixing the fondant.  Most fondant recipes aren't vegetarian-friendly, but I finally found one that called for corn syrup instead of gelatin or marshmallows.  It held together well and readily absorbed the gel food coloring I'd purchased at the craft shop.

First attempt is on the left, and second attempt is on the right:

Here are my fondant colors.  I call that large tub of blue, "Southwest Airlines blue."

The following morning, day two, I decided to tackle the carving.  The task loomed before me, but I was excited to see what I could do.  I read online that beginners should always freeze their cakes before carving.  It makes them less crumbly.

To be honest, I couldn't believe how easily I was able to carve my cake into a plane.  OK, so it might not be perfect, but I thought it was really good for both never having done anything like that before and for doing it in the 30 minute window that was my baby's morning nap.

Post-carving, I stuck the cake back in the freezer.  When both of my kids were down for their afternoon naps, I pulled the cake back out and lightly frosted it.  Apparently, frosting the cake first helps hold down any crumbs, and it gives the fondant something to stick to later.

As soon as the kids fell asleep for the night, I tackled the cake decorating.  It was so much fun working with fondant.  I was able to cut, paste, and smooth it out relatively easily.  Andrew took a photo of me applying the yellow icing for the detail.

I was up until nearly midnight, which, for a mom of two little ones, is really late.  I can't remember the last time I was up so late when it wasn't for a nighttime feeding.  I think it was worth it, though.  Here are a few photos of the finished product:

I popped the cake back into the freezer to hold its shape for the following day: Thursday, my third day working on the contest, and the day I set aside for the photo shoot.  My plan was to take the cake outside and make it "fly" for Oliver.  I thought he'd love it.  I was right!  What I didn't count on was how hard it would be to make the cake "fly" for him while still being able to get a good photo of it.

Here's the cake flying.  As you can see, Oliver loved watching it fly.  However, you can't see my cake very well.

I got really into the effects of making the cake fly.  A bunch of neighbor kids came by to watch me fly my cake plane.

Ultimately, I decided the plane had better fly lower to the ground to get a good photo of it.  Oliver enjoyed that because he could reach his finger in to eat some of the powdered sugar clouds.  With over two dozen photos to choose from, I finally settled on the last one of the group.

Here is my entry to celebrate Southwest Airline's 41st birthday.  Happy Birthday, Southwest!  I hope you have as much fun celebrating as I have!

My entry pin: http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957066791786/

#HappyBdaySWA