In honor of the arrival of the newest member of The Artful Cake family, our son Liam, I thought it would be perfect to highlight some baby themed cakes!
I’ll start with the cake we had at Liam’s Baby Shower. My assistant Dori was awesome enough to decorate it for us and it turned out beautifully! We used the napkins and tablecloths as a jumping off point for inspiration (which is a great place to start at for any celebration cake’s design). I wanted the cake to be fun and boy colored but not too baby themed. It looked adorable and tasted even better with a different flavor in each tier.
A great idea for a shower cake, whether it be bridal or baby, is to have the cake resemble a gift. You can personalize the gift to match the colors of the theme and the gumpaste tag can have a special message written on it.
Another cute idea for a baby shower cake is to add a pair of edible gumpaste baby booties!
The theme of the baby’s nursery is a great place to get the design inspiration for the cake. This cake was for a Mom who was decorating everything with a jungle theme. She wanted all of the animals in the jungle and the baby sleeping in the clouds on top of the cake. It was super cute!
It’s always nice to have a personal touch on the cake that is meaningful to the parents. This Mom and Dad wanted a cake like one they saw at The Pink Cake Box but they personalized it by having their dogs in the pram waiting for the baby’s arrival!
A baby shower cake can be as traditional or creative as you want and is a special way to prepare to welcome the little one! I’ve created many baby shower cakes and can say it was wonderful to have a special one of my own! The greater gift was the bundle of joy my husband and I welcomed into the world on January 16th. Liam is definitely my sweetest and most beautiful creation to date!
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Over the past 6 months or so I have fallen off of the blog bandwagon but am making an effort to get back on! It’s been a crazy spring, summer, and early fall. My husband and I found out we are expecting our first child in February! The past months have been ups and downs of morning sickness, emotional rollercoasters, and trying to take care of myself all while putting out some amazing new cakes.
The highlight in the cake world for me this year was the opportunity to compete and appear on WeTV’s “Wedding Cake Wars”. I competed against 11 other cake artists to make a themed wedding cake in 7 hours in front of an audience and cameras. On top of that I was one of three contestants to be “featured” and followed by a film crew for three days prior to the competition. It was an amazing experience- although quite stressful!
We were told 3 days prior to the competition that the theme was “location”. We were given the freedom to interpret this into a wedding cake any way we wanted to. I was allowed to have an assistant with me and I had Dori by my side the whole time…and let me tell you she rocked it! She and I planned and prepped for 72 hours all while making and delivering my regular orders and wedding cakes. The actual competition was 2 days long in Westminster Maryland (only 30 minutes away which was awesome!). The first day we had 2 hours to prep, fondant, and stack our cakes. The second day we had 5 hours to decorate and finish our cakes.
Dori and I did a Russia themed cake. It was inspired by the amazing whimsical cathedrals in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Below is the revised sketch of our plan. We actually did a run through two days before to see what we were up against and to make revisions to the original design. I think this practice run was the key to our success- I am a planner by nature, especially when the outcome will be on national tv!
Here are some shots of us in action during the competition. We worked like a well oiled machine even though we’d only been working together for about 2 months!
Here is a picture of our completed cake. Two of the critiques from the judges were that it lacked the bold colors seen in the cathedrals and that the top was bulky and not clean…I agree with both of these remarks! You can see the doors on the bottom tier that opened and closed- this satisfied one of the judged criteria which was a moving part.
Speaking of the judges, there were 3 judges. Two of whom were Jason Ellis, talented cake artist who has been seen on Food Network Challenges many times, and Colette Peters, the Queen of cake! Ron Ben-Isreal was the host and was a riot! Here are some photos of us with them!
The show was an incredible challenge and we had a blast. We ended up coming in second place which was a huge accomplishment in our book!! I had only been creating cakes for about 2 years when we filmed so I was super proud of how we did. I loved meeting so many new people in the cake world and making my mark for the first time. I especially loved being on camera and the great new friendships I made with our amazing crew and producers. I have a feeling this will not be the last time you see me on tv 
If you would like to check out interviews and clips from the show click the link to WeTV’s website:
http://www.wetv.com/wedding-cake-wars
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