Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake

At the state library, we are experiencing lots of bittersweet endings and new beginnings.  Recent layoffs have separated a lot of old friends.  Still, we find things to celebrate.  And one of the nicest pieces of news is that our colleague is having a baby.  I made this cake in honor of her new beginning and in honor of all she means to us.  Since this is their first child, it seems the librarians felt that a book theme was most appropriate (she received lots of books).  The Very Hungry Caterpillar holds a special place in many of our hearts and what could be more sweet and comforting at this time than a cake that emulates the beautiful artwork of Eric Carle?

To get the painterly collage look, I rolled out homemade marshmallow fondant, treated it like a canvas and loaded up my paintbrush with a rainbow of Wilton gel colors, thinned slightly with vanilla vodka.  The green canvas was huge and featured a gradient of green, blue-green, and yellow-green.  I then cut out strips and arranged them on my caterpillar.  The body of the caterpillar is made of lemon pound cake which I'd baked in a bundt pan.  I cut the ring of cake into segments and rearranged them to get this shape.  The segments were glued together and smoothed out with a generous amount of American butter cream frosting.  Since Carle uses collage in his work, so did I.  I think it did emulate the effect fairly well.  I did the same for all the little treats that the caterpillar snacked on through the week.

 

The cupcakes were a lemon yellow cake, frosted in the same butter cream and topped with the little fondant treats.  The little holes were created by pushing the end of a drinking straw through each shape.  I hand sculpted little feet out of brown-tinted fondant.

My former colleagues were surprised to learn that this was a homemade cake, so I suppose it speaks well of the job I did.  One gal brought her little boy and he was absolutely fascinated with the cake and the little cupcakes.  I was particularly pleased by his sense of wonder.  I think that is always what I hope for when I create a cake.  It's really the best feeling ever.

September: Painted Cakes

Well, I thought I was Miss Artiste, so I got all painterly on a couple of cakes this month.  Marshmallow fondant makes a really nice canvas, so that's what I used.  The first occasion was a 60th birthday party and the second was to celebrate the marriage of a good friend at work.

Honestly, I think my roses need work, but the colors on the 60th birthday cake were very nice. 

My pearls of fondant were a little gigantic, but I was running out of time and needed something big enough to cover a lot of ground fast.  I also wished I'd had time to pipe some greenery on top.  *sigh*  When the party guests cut into the cake, they were treated to three layers of a deep chocolate devil's food cake.

I was frankly shocked at how well my calligraphy turned out.  I thought I was going to faint I was so nervous before the first stroke.  So, I just did it.

I sort of liked this color combination, too.  And halfway through the painting, my technique actually improved.  I also felt bolder with my brush strokes.  It's amazing how just a little bit of confidence can improve your work.  The two types of piped flowers were new to me--sunflowers and mums.  Since I used an all butter frosting, the piping was tricky.  And I'll tell you right now, chrysanthemums are INSANELY hard to make out of frosting.  Don't do it unless you're just a nut job like me!  :-)