The Joys of Caking: February 2013

I usually like to have a lot of time to think about my cakes before I make them. I do a lot of planning. For this cake, I didn't have that luxury.

My sister and a friend were throwing a surprise baby shower for another friend, Corissa. She already has 3 boys and is expecting another one. That's a lot of boys. They asked me a few days before the shower if I could make the cake. Ah, a challenge!

I've seen so many baby shower cakes with the little baby shoes and I have been wanting to try them for awhile. They look really hard to make, but it actually turned out to be fairly easy, but time consuming.

Since it was so last minute and I had other plans for that weekend, my sister baked the cake, put in the filling and iced the cake for me. She did a great job. Elisa assisted her, of course.

My friend Rachel was visiting for the weekend from St. Louis. She was my assistant/cheerleader/photographer. Thanks for all your help Rachel!

I found a great tutorial and pattern online from marzipanmom (http://marzipanmom.blogspot.com/2012/02/baby-converse-cake.html). She also did a youtube video, which was very helpful. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cBcVz2IR_g

I cut out the pattern in different sizes and then cut out the fondant pieces.

This picture is like a Wilton commercial.
How many Wilton products can you spot?

I used a mixture of fondant and gumpaste - about half and half. Don't forget, when you are working with gumpaste and fondant, you need to keep it covered because it dries very quickly!

Baby Chloe is watching all of the action.

Once the pieces were cut, I added some trim onto the shoes using a fondant cutter. Then I began gluing the pieces together (using gum glue, not real glue). I put some clingwrap inside the shoe to help keep the shape until the fondant dried.

Then I added the shoe laces.

I made the holes before I glued the piece on the shoe using a #3 frosting tip - the perfect size! I used the fondant shaping tool to stick the laces into the holes.

If I do this again, I will make sure to punch the holes a little lower so the laces go all the way down. But I thought they turned out pretty well.

Each shoe has a slightly different look.

4 different fondant baby shoes

The last thing I added was the little loop on the back of the shoes.

Here is a better look at the detail.

Finally I cut out some fondant circles and arranged them on the cake. I borrowed the cookie cutters I gave my sister-in-law for Christmas last year to cut out the letters.