This weekend I got to make a baby shower cake for my good friend Heather! Honestly, I am always excited to bake for Heather, particularly since has a history of giving me a loose theme and allowing me to run with it. You may remember her as being the recipient of my Rococo Sailor Moon cake!
This time the theme was classic Winnie the Pooh. I’m in love with classic Pooh as a baby shower theme. It’s gender neutral, but still delicate and adorable. Plus, Pooh is a treasure trove of the sweet and sentimental, which I’m a sucker for. The following quote, especially, is perfect for a shower:
“Sometimes,’ said Pooh, ‘the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”
D’awww.
On to the nuts and bolts of the cake! The base of the crib was a rectangular hummingbird cake with a cream cheese Italian meringue icing. It was about 4″x6″. I covered it in pink fondant and textured it to look like a fitted sheet with folds.
To “lift” the crib, I simply propped it up with slabs of foamcore. I wasn’t aiming for a perfect “floating” illusion, just enough of a space to make the crib look a bit more realistic. You can see the foamcore base below.
The slats and headboards, and basically the actual “crib” part were all made of pastillage. I piped on some royal icing details and painted on two night time scenes based on some iconic Pooh images. I also used royal icing to make the rug.
The balloon was actually a styrofoam round covered in fondant. I’ll be honest, I considered making this entirely edible and decided it wasn’t worth the danger of trying to transport the thing in warm weather! If I ever do it again for a cake that doesn’t have to drive for 45 minutes, I’d probably try a hollow chocolate sphere instead.
After we cut the cake, I carefully scraped the backs of the headboards clean so that the mom-to-be could keep them, since pastillage lasts basically forever. I did the same thing with Pooh, who was made out of fondant. Here they are all cleaned up. You can see one of the cupcakes I made in the background as well!
Here I am, standard Katharina pose. Shortly after this, I was asked to cut it. This is fair; it’s weird trying to figure out how to take apart a cake like this.
Here’s a photo of it cut! Sorry for the low quality on this one. I could’ve used a sharper knife… oh well, it tastes the same! As mentioned above, it was hummingbird (banana, pineapple and pecan) cake with Italian meringue cream cheese icing. Yum!
Thanks for reading, and see you all next Monday!
What the heeeeck! That balloon is so cute and clever. Is it just a wire holding it up? How would you have supported it if it was a chocolate sphere?
Yep, it was a thick wire! If I had done a chocolate sphere, I would have bent the top end of the wire and secured it into the sphere with a bunch of melted chocolate! The bottom “nub” on the balloon could have covered that pretty well. Since I’d have to use two half-spheres instead of just doing one solid sphere, it would have been easy enough to secure the wire properly before combining the halves, if that makes sense! 🙂