A Beanie Baby Birthday Cake

Last week my first born turned 8. Just where has that time gone?

I'm immensely proud of this little lady.  She's full of life - sensitive, caring and a wonderfully feisty redhead.  Our family is all about letting our children be children.  To encourage them to enjoy the outdoors, to play and to relish everything that childhood should encompass.  We aren't currently very technological and I definitely like it that way but accept that this will likely change in future years - for now we're completely enjoying Lego of all varieties!  In fact, the majority of the day was spent putting different Lego sets together that she'd been gifted - lucky girl.

 

Anyhow, the past six months have seen my little lady being literally crazy about Beanie Babies (or Beanie Boo's).  Both of my kiddies have favoured cuddly toys over dolls etc. and I think the Beanie Babies are equivalent to the Ty Beanies that were prevalent in my childhood.  This interest translated into a request for a birthday cake of a particular character 'Bubblegum', which was in fact the first in her collection and remains a firm favourite in her gradually growing brood.








I started looking for ideas using search engines and Pinterest and starting putting together some ideas on my new board.  This was a real inspiration for the birthday cake.  What an amazing effort that cake was!  And here's my make!










 I used a 6inch tin for the base and then made 3x 3.5 inch cakes in some cute tins my mum had kindly given to me for making small Christmas cakes to gift when I put my Christmas hampers together later this year.  Once cooked, the 6inch chocolate cake became the flowery garden.  I interlaced chocolate and plain sponge layers all sandwiched together with a very thin covering of butter icing.  The body of the beanie baby was then sculpted with a knife, covered in a thin layer of butter icing before being decorated.  I mixed the icing colours myself using Wilton Icing Colouring Gel and white icing (as I usually do).  Bubblegum really came to 'life' by piping pink icing on (for a furry effect) and rolled out regal icing for the tummy, eyes and other details - some bits like the ears and hands were moulded and held in place with cocktail sticks.  The tail was an extra curve of cake covered in darker pink and grey bands of longer piped strips of butter icing to give the effect of the lemurs more bushy tail!

I was really pleased with the finished cake - as was my little lady.  The look on her face is always worth the time and effort I put in.  The birthday cake in our house is something of a tradition that is chosen and re-chosen months in advance by the birthday girl or boy. 

Candles get lit and blown out 5 or 6 times each - including the sibling whose birthday it is not!  Of course the birthday girl or boy always gets more turns!!

I think this is the best birthday cake I've put together so far.  It is interesting to see how this skill gradually improves over time.  I'm not good at intricate details or fine icing but the last cake - little man's dinosaur cake also made this year was my best cake before this one- so hopefully I'll carry on improving.  I'm by no means a professional and certainly wouldn't feel confident making decorative cakes outside the family but I do get such satisfaction from crafting the kiddies cake of choice.

And they get such satisfaction from eating it!!  I will bake a second simpler cake for her Beanie Baby themed tea party this Saturday and will share some of the activities I have planned in a different post next week.  Fingers crossed it goes well!

Happy Birthday Little Lady.
Always & Forever,
Mummy x

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